EDIT: This is over-long. I apologize for that.
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I have (and have had) both. My first F was a 1974 irafone 180-5U with some real issues. I bought it from Dave at BBC when he first started that shop. he claimed to me on the phone that it was the best example of this model that he had ever played, so my opinion of these was set to Full Negative from that time on.
HOWEVER…
I got a LOT of use out of that tuba, performing in my orchestra and in the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Austria, even playing the RVW Concerto on one of my orchestra's Chamber Series programs.
Three pros for these that make me interested in one day getting another…
• the sound
• the volume
• the clarity
Sometimes you hear folks say the Conn 2xJ tubas cannot be played well below
mf. (I have never experienced this.) You ocassionally hear this about other horns, too. My 180 could be played well at low volumes, but only so low. In fact, it was the LOUDEST tuba I have ever played, bar none. That little sucker produced some meat. I do not understand why this is.
Some cons…
• massive "low-C-itis"
• 23 combo was hideously out of tune through the overtone series
• the volume
Again, you could not get soft enough. I had a tough experience with the Strauß "Serenade" that left me confused. The tuba part is indicated for tuba or contrabassoon, and this tuba could NOT get into the ensemble in the softer parts. It made me feel like a ham-fisted clod on a few things. I had to quickly make a mute for it, which worked well.
My next F was an excellent YFB-621 that I used at work for well over a decade. I never, ever "bonded" with this tuba. I just never really enjoyed the thing. It did everything I wanted it to do, and OTHER PLAYERS liked the sound. ("It sounds just like a tuba to me.") I hated that sound. It was not what I wanted it to be, and I struggled with mouthpieces for about five years until I stumbled upon one that created a warmr tone for me, while also improving the low end volume. That horn never had a great upper register, and Bydlo was very difficult to play on that example, whereas it was a snap on my Mirafone.
I went to a Kurath F next. It is the extreme opposite of the spectrum for an F tuba. It is the biggest F I have ever personally played. It is one of those F tubas that seems like the builder wanted to create a small contrabass tuba, but only 12 feet long. Honestly, it plays like an excellent, large piston Eb tuba that is 200¢ sharp. I have done a ton of work to it to dial it down a bit, as it is too bog for solo work, IMHO. I did a solo recital on it, and all I could think about was how loud it was. Like the little Mirafone, it just dumps sound out of the bell, but it is a BIG sound, so above the staff it just feels "horsey" to me. (Yeah, I know. That is a very vague adjective, but it is the best I can think of in this specific case.) There is nothing wrong with the sound at all. It is just too tuba-ish when way up there. I guess I got used to the clear and clean sounds of the smaller F tubas when playing stuff like Berlioz or the Vaughan Williams. I don't really know what my deal is with this tuba. However, a much tighter leadpipe and a smaller mouthpiece seem to have helped in this regard greatly. The horn's low register has not bee affected at all by these changes, so it seems to split the difference better than it did, and I am playing the Broughton on it soon without any issues with the weight or color of the sound now.
I had an excellent Adams, but after the Kurath it was just too small. It was like the Yamaha, with better intonation and a much more colorful tone. I loved it. However, I use F exclusively in quintet, which is a large part of my contract, and I never fell in love wiht it in that setting. If I were a Uni prof who did a lot of solo recital work it would have been perfect for me, but my needs are better fulfilled by my Kurath, so that is where I am right now.
After nearly 40 years of F tuba playing with the smallest and largest examples I have to say that the larger horns suit my needs better, but I enjoy the smaller ones more. However, I am not a good enough player to make the low ranges of the smaller ones sound robust enough on below-the-staff walking basslines with a set drummer in a quintet to want to work that hard. And we play that sort of rep all the time, whereas the rep with bass bone/euph 5th parts that a lot of tuba players are saddled with (frequently much more "serious" rep) we only play on occasion, and I can swing them fine on the larger horn. So for me the larger ones win out.
I cannot cope with the dreaded low C issues with which many F tubas are saddled. My face does not lurch around and spasm and contort fast enough for me to ever be happy playing one of those horns. I see that issue as terrible engineering. It has been more or less solved by so many designs that to have as many stinkers still on the market is simply a sign of a lazy, complacent business. I think I know what causes it, and I understand why it is not fixed: it cannot be, due to the wrap of the bugle of these horns, and would require a total redesign, which would not be profitable. I think it would be more ethical (for makers who have a breakthough with this and create an F with a solid low register) to simply pull the stinkers from their catalogs. They won't, however, because the "fixed" F tubas generally do not sound like the stereotypical "singing" F tubas with the craptacular low ends. To fix the one issue you have to let the other one go. Or you have to invest far more R&D $$$$$$$ to get both qualities, and then you would have a super-expensive tuba that no one is willing to buy. HB/Adams has figured this out and produced tubas that are/were very reasonably priced for what you get. But most tuba players think paying 25% of what a bassoonist or violinist pays for a top-quality instrument is apallingly high. So paying the
same amount would cause them to suffer a brain hemmorage. (We are spoiled by having such cheap instruments. We compare ourselves to trumpeters in this regard, which is truly stupid and shortsighted of us, since really top shelf trumpets cost a lot more than most tubas. We are woefully out of tough with this reality. I have a YamaYork. It was worth every penny I spent on it, too, despite the pain of paying for it. It is the best tuba I have ever played, bar none. and it cost me half of what our bassoonists and most of our fiddle players paid for their axes. It is all attitudinal. If we are willing to pay for genuine acoustical excellence makers will rise to this and start producing more horns like Adams and the Yamaha 826. Until we are willing to pay for this quality we will continue to get crippled instruments that are out piteously out of tune or have whole reginsters that play poorly.
Sorry. Off my soapbox. Anyway, I was intrigued by your post. I did not intend to answer you with far more than you wanted.
Yet here we are…
In the end, I agree with you about scaling down the sound. I dislike my Kurath for this specirfic thing, but it still serves my needs more than a smaller horn that handles lighter material better. In the end I intend to get a smaller F for that sort of stuff.
Or a cimbasso.
Maybe.
