I am curious to see if this is frustrating to anyone else.  Stadium Hardware is a great product.  In the high school setting I find more situations however where the student needs to the drum ";lower"; than the lowest settings as opposed to raising it.  Ugh...always too tall/high! 

Has anyone made modifications to their hardware to amend this or have you had similar issues?  Or do we have smurf genes floating around?

I'm with you. It can very irritating! Freshmen girls are especially short and the stands can be very discouraging.

We haven't found a modification and growth hormones don't really do the trick (you need longer than a marching season to really get the benefit....).

Anyone else find the base of the stands to be difficult to use? I feel like I need to get a protractor out every time I want to set a set of tenors up.

Glad I am not alone.  Yes the tenor stand design is not good.  The best I have seen might be 2coolpercussion who has a neat double brace tenor stand.  Looks very stable.

Just wish I could keep my stadium hardware with some modifications.

I haven't used them but the XL Specialty stuff looks good. We bought some snare carriers from them and I was really impressed. They value ";sturdy"; over ";comfort."; My kids never thought they were uncomfortable, either. Just don't have as many customization options.

Eric do the XL stands adjust better for shorter kids?  What about in the bleachers?

I don't know. My experience has only been with the carriers. I would be curious to know if anyone on here has used them... ;)

Yeah, I've had good luck with 2cool percussion.  I've ordered their stadium hardware for several colleges/high schools I've worked with.  They go down pretty low, and they work extremely well in the stands, and pretty well on a flat surface.  Link below:

[url=http://www.2coolpercussion.com/index_010.htm]http://www.2coolpercussion.com/index_010.htm[/url]

Hope this helps.