TubeNet

Last I heard, that horn reached prototype and the plug was pulled. I played one in 1998 at Midwest and it was a nice tuba. I think they made 2. It never went to production, is what I heard. Anyway, someone on Tubenet certainly has the correct details....

Nice pic, Scoob -- thanks! It's a pity they didn't put it into production. Any idea what happened to the prototypes?

Oh, damn, that's just not even fair! To have a matched pair of one of those and a 5XJ with a re-worked 5th valve....

The bell flare is right out of 1920

It's kind of strange seeing a leadpipe that long on a piston-valved instrument. Wonder why they put the valve cluster way over to one side.

Here's another angle of the same instrument.

They just washed a 52J in hot water .... and it shrank!

Bob1062 wrote:This looks like a very small horn; perhaps it was done that way to help hold it better? To easily hug it instead of just -insert appropriate word here-?

Perhaps it's made up of "parts on hand" and the strange design is just a result of that.

I was working as a clinician for Conn when this F tuba was being designed. At one point Conn flew me to Eastlake, OH to the factory to spend 2 or 3 days testing the F and making suggestions. At that point it was about 90% ready for production. This was not a small tuba as some have suggested from the pictures on this thread. The valve section was the same as the 5XJ's. The bell was from a Conn 3J-5J and it was roughly the overall size as the 5J. A 3/4 BBb tuba, but a fairly substantial F tuba. It would have compared very favorabaly with an 822 Yamaha in the size of the sound. Conn apparently was having trouble justifying the cost effectiveness of an F tuba in the line-up and this, I believe, is why it was never produced. Guess what boys & girls, if it didn't happen then, it is definitely not going to happen now with the current state of things at Conn-Selmer. The good news is there are plenty of good F's out there and a couple of great ones. Can you say "Firebird"?

Here's a question for the industry insiders that I've been wondering about for quite awhile.

When was the last time a US manufacturer cut any new tooling (dies, mandrels, etc.) for a new tuba model? More than 20 years?

Maybe this should go under the "Elkhart" thread...