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I'm hoping to (in the near future) upgrade to a better BBb tuba. My school has King 2341's and new ST. Pete 203N's. The ST. Pete's are nothing short of mortifying. I use the King's 99% of the time. My issue with the King is that its bore is too small.

I was wondering if anyone had any reccomendations for cheap-ish (by todays standards ) piston BBb tubas.

I have looked at the eastman models, and I'm not interested in any jinbao type of horn, so I figured I'd ask the tuba gurus online.

If you want something not Chinese and cheapish, your best bet is probably to try your luck in the For Sale section.

Nice Bb tubas show up in the For Sale section pretty often, so keep an eye on that. If larger bore at a "cheap-ish" price is an important feature, maybe you should look at rotary valves.

Or maybe not. Somehow, the few Bb tubas listed recently might be too expensive. What kind of price do you mean by cheapish?

anotherjtm2 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 9:47 pm What kind of price do you mean by cheapish?

By cheap-ish I mean the absolute maximum is $5,000

Well King 1241's and old or new style King 2341's are always good. A Miraphone 186 BBb can be found at times around 5,000 or less. I think the 4/4 Jupiter is decent. And I remember the St Pete BBb being decent too... or maybe because I have only tried brand new demo units? Doubt you'll find a used Brazilian made Nirshl BBb but the last one I played at the Army Band Workshop around 2010 was quite good. If you can find a Big Mouth Brass BBb should also be good too. I thought the two Conn tubas and the Marzan at Baltimore Brass were nice. I preferred the raw brass Conn BBb more (the link on top) than the silver one though. All of the tubas I have mentioned except for those particular Kings of course have larger bores.

https://www.baltimorebrasscompany.com/p ... -tuba.aspx

https://www.baltimorebrasscompany.com/p ... -tuba.aspx

https://www.baltimorebrasscompany.com/p ... -tuba.aspx

Even though I have not played this tuba at all, but from what have read about Martin tubas over the years their 6/4 BBb tubas should be very nice. If you do not mind getting a 6/4 tuba. And no I do not personally know the seller. Wish I had the money though for it.
https://www.tubaforum.net/viewtopic.php?t=5761

Best of luck!

If you can find one, a B&S 3301, sometimes branded as a B&S PT2-P, VMI (like the one I have) or F. Schmidt is a solid 4/4 sized, 4-valve piston BBb. Despite the variety of names/stencil branding, they're all essentially the same instrument, built in Germany at the B&S factory.

There's also the 3302 that has a 5th rotary valve.

They come up for sale from time to time and in the past have all been around $4-5k.

The VMI 3302 is an AWESOME tuba. I owned one as my first horn and bought it for $3500. Huge bang for your buck compared to anything else in that range. If you can find one, I'd strongly suggest taking it.

FujiiFilm17 and Sousagswag are absolutely correct. I forgot about the VMI 3301 tuba. Absolutely amazing and definitely should be on anyone's list.

http://galvanizedjazz.com/tuba.html
Scroll down to #20. I am ready to part with this instrument, and it will be in your price range.
It's similar to the King but with bigger bore.
Send me a pm or email if you are interested.
-Art-

Art Hovey wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 11:19 pm http://galvanizedjazz.com/tuba.html
Scroll down to #20. I am ready to part with this instrument, and it will be in your price range.
It's similar to the King but with bigger bore.
Send me a pm or email if you are interested.
-Art-

Freaking cool!