The sheet metal that the clips are on is bent at too much of an open angle and needs to be closed to at least 90 deg. The lamp housing itself needs to then be bent out so that the light will cast as close as possible to the center of whatever you are trying to read. Finally, you need to toss the weak 40 Watt lamp that comes with the unit and (in my case) replace with a GE 40 Watt Soft white # 90904 or whatever your preference is. The basics are all there; Manhasset just needs to pay attention to the details.

The music stand lights are great. They are fully shielded, so no light escapes from the back. They work wonderfully for our Praise Team. And the guitar stands are a great value and our guitarists really appreciate them.

This is a well built light in terms of construction quality, but installed on the top of a music stand tilted back 20 degrees, it wasted much of its light output on my band director and the floor in front of my stand. So, I popped the four rivets out which attach the shade to the stand clamp, put each part in a vise and bent them from their original 60 degree angles to 90 degrees and then reassembled it with four small nuts and bolts. Now, it casts its light fully on my music! Also, as others mention, the inside of the bulb housing is painted flat black. I removed the 40 watt tubular bulb it comes with, slipped a whole personal letter sized envelope inside the housing (fits perfectly) and replaced the 40 watt with a tubular 25 watt bulb of the same size. (Home Depot, $1.95) My music's better illuminated than before, the light doesn't get hot, and we save juice, too!I feel this stand light has too many good features and is too well built to suffer from these two design glitches any longer.

My husband and I play in a number of groups, and have found this light to be excellent for jazz band solos, as it is the brightest we have found. We take out Manhasset traveling stands, these lights, and are all set. It does need a power source, but for most inside jobs, this is not a big deal. The cord is long enough to reach the strips.