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After dinking around with bass tubas for almost two years, I finally found one I think I'll keep:

Meinl-Weston 2040/5 Eb.

I have previously owned a PT-10 and a Yamaha 822. The PT-10 gave me weird hand craps, but had a great sound and pretty good intonation. It is now owned by a certain individual who just won a gig at the Naval Yard . The 822 just didn't work for me sound-wise but was a very even playing horn with decent intonation.

I've never played Eb before and I'm just getting my fingerings down, but can tell that this situation should work very well. The rotors feel great, the response is superb, the low end kicks, and the sound is quite F-tubaish. I think it's the perfect mix of sound and playability.

The horn plays sharp for me, but I believe that is from a lack of playing bass tuba for 6 months. I can get it to play on pitch with concentration and about 10 minutes of tuner work each day before "real" practice. I am, however, having a heck of a time with 1st space A playing quite sharp. Any suggestions (Neptune)?

I'm waiting for some ensemble situations to try it in as most of our comm. orchestra rep. only needs contrabass, and I don't have any upcoming quintet gigs until Easter. However, I have a feeling that this horn will work well for either (with a little mouthpiece finagling).

Anyway I just wanted to make a point to say that if you are looking for a great bass tuba that sounds like a large F, but with a bit more "playability" don't count this horn out. I'm pretty sure Roger Lewis has one, you might want to shoot him a message.

YMMV, FWIW, IMHO, bla bla bla,

d(re-learning fingerings like a mofo)temp

so, take the Eb into a rehearsal, no matter what the "right" horn is, see what happens. Most likely, the conductor won't even notice. You may want to tell him/her first, though, in case the pitch is truly funky. No better way to learn than to try.

dtemp,

I got to toot the same Eb tuba a few months ago and was delighted. A fine horn indeed. If I had to start all over, I´d get one of those and consider myself a sound (sic!) member of the low brass community.

That said, I still am a believer in the following two-instrument-lineup:
small to mid-sized F
mid to large sized CC

The reason being that I feel there is too little "distance" between the Eb and CC tubas I personally met. This means (to me), that there is little to no motivation to buy a large-sounding Eb if you own a CC already and vise-versa.

The reason being that I feel there is too little "distance" between the Eb and CC tubas I personally met.

I understand where your coming from. An Eb tuba can get pretty much as low in the register as a C tuba, but the difference is the sound. The C tuba has that large core sound which just fills up the room. It's extremely hard to create that big tuba sound on an Eb.

For your reference i play a 983 Besson and a PT6p

I do almost all of my playing on a Willson 5 valve Eb. I have two symphony gigs and odd jobs around with bands and small groups. The Willson is terribly sensitive to the mouth piece I use, especially the "gap," regarding intonation. The Willson has a "European" receiver and requires a European shank or some serious shimming. The first sign I have of an unsuitable mouth piece is the 3rd line "d" being low. If you have the ability to play around with mouth pieces of the correct gap and shank, you may discover how to cure your intonation idiosyncrasies.