Good for location recording

The Shure S15A a good choice for location setups. It is light, extends high and comes with a carry bag. The down side is its poor stability at full extension, even with a very light weight microphone. It tends to flex and wobble when extended to its maximum height.

Going up...

The S15A is definitely a winner in it's class. With five, light weight aluminum telescopic extentions, it's perfect for stereo mic'ing large concert ensembles. Everytime I raise my stereo array as high as I think it can go, I find another extention I missed! It can handle 14' with ease, the sturdy reinforced tripod base extends to a comforting diameter, and it would be hard to knock down without walking directly into it. I did find the telescopic sections to rattle a bit, but this disappears as the extentions are raised more and weight is applied by the mics. The tripod is held in position by a thumb screw clamp on one of the legs, so don't overtighten it or you could probably squash the aluminum tube. The only other complaint is that it doesn't come in black. It folds up just as small as any run of the mill generic stand does, and barely weighs any more. And, when I need to put the stand far back enough that it ends up in the stage pit, you can push up the bottom section (which starts to fold the legs back in = less stable) and attach a small boom in a vertical position to make up for the loss, making the stand around 17-18' high. Any higher than that you could pass notes to the lighting guy on the catwalk. A good buy overall.