I recently received an early Christmas present from Tom, one of my students, and I was encouraged to open it before Christmas. Inside the sizable package was a Hercules Tuba/Euphonium floor stand! I had been considering getting one of these for a while, although I had not yet sorted through what was a good fit for my use among the brands available. Tom saved me the trouble, because he had chosen well.

There were two basic types of instrument stands that I had used. One is an upright stand with arms on both sides (such as the K&M Baritone Stand or the Nomad Collapsible Tuba/Euphonium Stand), which is probably the best choice for a display stand. It has a small footprint and holds the horn securely, but it is somewhat more "fussy" when you insert and remove the horn. Its weight is about 5 pounds. The Hercules stand is more of a horn rest, and is probably a better choice for the practice room. It cradles the instrument fairly securely, but would not be as secure on a display floor, where it might get bumped and jostled. But it is great for setting the horn in several times during a practice session or for storage at home. Its weight is about 10 pounds. My remaining comments here will be about the Hercules.

This thing is sturdy! In the photo the yellow joint at the legs looks like plastic, but it is metal, just like the rest of the structural pieces. Both "arms" are adjustable, and the spread of the legs is also adjustable. I have the legs set fairly wide for stability. If you were to use it in a shared space, you would have to find the best combination of wideness (for stability) and narrowness (for less "tripping" potential). The rubber padding seems to be of high quality and has a nice friction factor.

It folds into a reasonably compact shape, and one could carry it in a bag of the right size. Or you could get fancy and have Altieri make one specially for it (there may also be standard bags that fit it nicely). The folded configuration is shown in the photo, but the upper arm is not folded in as far as it could be. (I used it as an extra "leg" so the stand would pose better for the photo.)

The design allows you to put the horn in with the mouthpiece pointing more down or more up. For between-session storage of my horn, I like to leave it with the mouthpiece downward. We have some Japanese beetles and spiders in our basement that might land in the mouthpiece otherwise! For the same reason, when I'm done for the day I put a cloth over the bell opening.

My current experiment is to leave the horn in this stand instead of my gig bag. The theory is the horn can get a little air for natural drying, so perhaps I won't grow so many cultures in the bottom of the valves! There is no air circulation inside a standard case. So far, the valve oil does not seem to evaporate any sooner this way, which is handy.

As mentioned above, putting the horn down on the stand and picking it up again are both totally easy and smooth, so it is very compatible with a practice routine that may have a few small breaks or interruptions (mine almost always do).

If the stand were intended only for euphonium, they might have wanted to tighten the curves' radius on the resting cradles. They are larger than needed for euphonium. However, their stickiness is ample to keep the horn from moving unexpectedly. The stand is made to work for a tuba as well. I haven't tried my EEb Sovereign in the stand yet, but I have no doubt the stand is amply strong for this heavy horn.

Kudos to Hercules for a well-thought-out design and for good execution in production!

Below are links to the stands mentioned.

Hercules DS552B TUBA-EUPHONIUM Stand
https://www.amazon.com/Hercules-DS55...dp/B000EEJ75G/

K&M Baritone Stand
https://www.amazon.com/K-M-14941-000...dp/B000NTBOD0/

Nomad NIS-C070 Collapsible Tuba/Euphonium Stand
https://www.amazon.com/Nomad-NIS-C07...dp/B00TV8IF6S/
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