I've played on other people's Apex stand rigs and found that the stand/keys moved from side to side, which is logical since the center of gravity is in the middle.

I still don't trust X-stands in any fashion. All of the weight of your keyboard rig plus your playing impact is forced upon a small aluminum pin, questionable welds, and/or other locking mechanism... and they can fail spectacularly I can tell you from experience.

The Monolith is as infallible and stable a design as I've seen and it costs about what other stands do. I really go for products that are innovative like the Monolith because if they are successful then they force other manufacturers to be more innovative also. They aren't there to pick up the pieces when things go wrong.

Also worth considering is the Z-stand made by QuikLok. I have one that I am turning into a portable studio console for a production company. They are a little heavy and take time to assemble/disassemble per gig but they are very stable.

[This message has been edited by The Pro (edited 03-31-2003).]