Negative things about MAW valves?

[bort]

I mean no disrespect to Martin Wilk with this thread, and have always had good experiences with him and his work.

Feedback I have read about MAW valves has been almost 100% positive. To me, that says two things: they are very good, or people aren't saying the bad things.

I have been thinking about trying a set on my PT7, and before buying them, would like to hear any less than perfect opinions. If you don't want to post publicly, send me a PM if you care to share your thoughts -- I'll keep it anonymous and won't share it with others.

Besides anything "negative," I'd be interested to hear thoughts about MAW valves in 6/4 tubas. Is there less of an effect with the big horns than with smaller horns? Is it a big change in resistance? What are Martin's valve stems, valve buttons, alignment kits, etc. like?

Hope this makes sense! Thanks!

[Porky]

Why don’t you just call him and ask him yourself. He’s very honest and not really a salesman so if you ask his opinion you’ll get a honest answer. To me the MAW valves open the horn up too much for my tastes. They are perfect for instruments that are generally tighter in the lower register.

[rodmathews]

I have owned two sets, one in my PT6 and one in my current big horn, a Nirschl York copy. In both cases, they made a tangible and positive difference in how the horn plays.

I didn't have any issues with the valves on the PT6, since those are pretty consistent from the factory. The Nirschl, not so much. Martin had to measure my valves and then adjust the new MAW valves accordingly, and one of them had to be adjusted a second time. This wasn't "plug and play" application of the valves, and Martin told me right up front that there may be some tweaking required. He did a great job of making sure the valves got fixed, and then I had to have them lapped in by a local repair person. This could be read as a negative, since they required some extra work, but I view the way Martin handled it as a positive and like I said, he did warn me up front that they may not be 100% straightforward. An alternative approach would have been to send my horn to his shop in Indiana, and he would have made them work perfectly. Most of this was a byproduct of doing "remote work" on a horn that is known to be inconsistent in assembly and specs.

Hope that gives you a little more color. It was fair amount of work with the Nirschl, but I would buy another set from Martin without giving it a second thought.

[bort]

Thanks, everyone, very helpful. I have talked with Martin before (he's great!), just looking for other input. Frankly, I almost didn't ask and just bought the valves. But, while I wait for my bank account to grow a bit more, why not ask around a bit!

[ckalaher1]

Overall, I like the valves and the way they make the horns handle. Couple of drawbacks include:

-took me a little bit to get used to the "blow" in my Ursus. WIDE open.
-I feel like I'm oiling the valves a lot.
-my Ursus coughs up a lot of oil, particularly out of the first valve. Can be pretty messy. My tuxedo shirts go to the cleaners quite a bit because of the leakage. If I wasn't using the PVAK that came on the instrument, I'd be going through felt washers under the valve cap with a bit more frequency due to saturation.

Having said all of that, I think anyone who owns a big valve MW/B&S/VMI instrument should give them a try if possible. Worst case scenario, ship them back to Martin, who won't be offended.

As always, your mileage may vary.