I have one of these and they are built like a tank. They are also quite heavy and very rigid, so I somtimes screw it to the top of a gooseneck, to apply some angle. Rest assured they are a quality bit of machining.

I use mine for ORTF and X-Y regularly. Nice minimal profile if you're in front of the audience. Heavy, like he said.

Ok, here's another silly question then:

Shure A55M donut shock stopper vs. Shure A55HM quick removal shock stopper

http://www.shure.com/accessories/a55m.asp

http://www.shure.com/accessories/a55hm.asp

Anyone prefer one over the other? One more prone to falling apart?

Not much use for most of "our" mics. These are for a tapered mic body typical of your cheap vocal dynamic types.

The qick removal one is good for shows where folks are going to remove mics from their mounts. Otherwise, I use the regular A53/55. The one nice thing about the quick removal one is they use rubber bands of sorts in it so you don't need to worry about loss of air in the donut (which rarely, but sometimes happens).

Re: the stereo bar, I found a great stereo bar recently at Location Sound here in LA. It is made for press conferences- it is wide and has something like 5 mounts on it and the end can swivel. http://www.olsenaudio.com/adapters.html (MA-658) It was inexpensive and it well built...

--Ben

Great minds think alike, Ben... I found the same thing a few months ago at GC, and picked one up.

It's not the prettiest thing going, but it's just the right size, and solid enough to do what I need. Until I come up with something prettier or sleeker, this one works great.

I do a radio show with multiple singers and I use the same bar http://www.proaudio.com/product_info.php?cPath=285_324&products_id=1648 for holding three boom mounted microphones on one microphone stand. (similar to what one sees being used for the three tenor concerts or Peter Paul and Mary concerts). it works well and the stereo bar is very sturdy and holds the boomsand the microphones in shockmounts very well with no sway and no problems so far. I got mine at Sam Ash and was the Windtech MA-658 model and cost less than $25.00.

FWIW