Karaoke Forums

Hey folks, I don't normally post stuff like this but this one has hit close to home and I wanted people to at least be aware of the circumstances. Ultimate Support Systems are the makers of a great many different forms of pro-audio stands. They make everything from keyboard stands to speaker stands to guitar stands. The production company I work with owns quite a bit of their equipment.

Recently we had occasion to seek warranty support for an IQ-2000 keyboard stand that we own. This is supposed to be the cadillac of keyboard stands being able to support 300 lbs and had two add-on additional tiers that we purchased with it. We had a total load of approximately 135 lbs on the stand (3 keyboards) when it experienced a catastrophic failure (the center joint in the X stand completely shattered). It was under warranty and luckily nothing was damaged so we thought, ok no big deal.

Well we first went to the distributor that we purchased the stand and tiers from. We were told that Ultimate Support was going out of business and they weren't sure how to get warranty support or parts. After trying two more local retailers we found one that was able to give us the contact information for Ultimate Support but they indicated we would have to contact Ultimate directly and ship the item in through an RMA process (not something we typically have to do with most pro-audio manufacturers).

When we did finally contact Ultimate we told them about the experience and they didn't seem to much care other than to assure us they were not going out of business. We were given an RMA number and shipping information and told it would take 1-2 weeks for a replacement to arrive. So that means 2 weeks having to jerry-rig stands in the recording studio, crappy but I guess that's life. 4 weeks later we finally received the replacement stand. We set it up and went to install the additional tiers only to discover that the additional tiers we have do not fit the new versions of the IQ-2000 stand. Another call to Ultimate was not helpful as they refused to replace the tiers since they were not faulty in and of themselves. We spent a lot of money on this stand when it was purchased specifically to have the 3 tiers and now it no longer functions with that capability.

So make your own decisions about dealing with these folks, but I'm not too keen on whats going on with them. Having such a hard time getting support and then getting only minimal support from them is frustrating and could certainly have negative impact on our business. Plus the uncertainty of their future concerns me as well. So I figured I'd at least share this story so you folks can also be aware.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Yikes, thanks for the heads up, people need to know that kind of stuff.

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♥ Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain. Cherish the memories, ignore the pain. Love and learn, forget and forgive. Because you only have one life to live. ♥

Pretty strong words. It seems that "Ultimate Support" is taking a bit of a beating here, perhaps deservedly, perhaps not. First off, the IQ2000 is not rated for 300 pounds it is only rated for 150 pounds. That means if you were off by a few pounds on your 135 pound estimate then the stand may have had every right to fail. It is possible that this contributed to its untimely demise as your 135 pound estimate is dangerously close to it's limit. It is even possible the limit was exceeded and no warranty was in order at all. Secondly the IQ 2000 is not considered "the Cadillac of keyboard stands" by any stretch of the imagination, it's not even the top of the line in the IQ series. What it is is a relatively cheap Double X style stand that is designed more for convenience than function and resides at the bottom of the keyboard stand food chain. As a keyboard player myself I wouldn't even consider using an "X" type stand in anything more than a practice situation and with never more than two boards on it. If your going to be using three boards you should be either using an "A Frame" style stand, "Z Style stand" or a "Standtastic KSB103", all of which are rock solid. Ultimate Support makes lots of different style stands and if used appropriately do a fine job for the most part. I have had no experience with Ultimate Supports customer service as i've had no casualties in over thirty years of using them.

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Quickness of mind will deceive the eye

I apologize, my information is somewhat incorrect. It is the IQ-3000 that we have, not the 2000. I looked at their website before making my original post to find out the model number. They don't list the 3000 any more and the 2000 looks very similar so that was my mistake. Looks like maybe the 3000 has been discontinued (I guess I can understand why). I can assure you it does have a 300 lbs weight raiting as it's even listed in the manual.

My frustrations with ultimate support aren't a result of the product failing, that happens and I'm ok with that. My problem is the uncertainty of their own distributors as to how to contact them, their poor constomer service and unwillingness to help a company that's invested over 10K in their products and the uncertainty of whether or not they'll be around for the long haul.

As far as the fitness of this product for its use, it is Ultimate Support that claimed it could handle 3 keyboards. It is Ultimate Support that stated the 300 lbs limit in their materials. It is Ultimate Support that called the IQ-3000 the cadillac series of portable stands (I don't know about you but I haven't seen an A-frame stand yet that I'd call truly portable).

And I don't think my words were that strong. Beware means exactly that. I didn't say avoid, I merely encouraged people to be cautious of them and shared the details of one of my experiences with them. I didn't discuss the dozen or so Speaker stands that I have where the leg pivots have broken loose or the other half doze that have collars that became brittle and cracked (3 of which brooke while supporting a load). I'll say I do love my GS-1000 guitar stands and haven't had a lick of issues with those.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

I agree with you on the lack of customer service from this company. I own only one piece of equipment from them, the trigger grip mic stand. It is a good idea, but really is designed for only one person to use it, not a good idea for karaoke application. The stand just stopped holding its position because people would push and pull it up and down without using the trigger, causing it to fail. Now, if only one person who knows how to use it, it would hold up fine.

Trying to get warranty on it was like pulling eye teeth. First of all the web site is not very user friendly, (hard to find the correct links), and when you do finally find the correct link, it only gives you a phone number. If you actually get to talk to someone in the customer service, then you have to jump through all the hoops, getting a return number, sending it back, paying for the shipping, waiting for the return, etc. None of these steps is really unusual, except for the fact they are just slow and unhelpful.

I honestly wouldn't use their products again, for fear of no way to get stuff warranty work done. Although most of their stuff is pretty good. Needless to say, i am still the owner of a broken mic stand. It was just to big of a hassle to deal with for the cost of the stand, I will just replace it with something else.