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Hey all,

I have a day gig selling instruments for a company here in the Toronto area in Canada. We're about to start carrying the Besson line and I'd like to get some feedback on a couple specific things.

1) What is the more popular bell size for the Sovereign, the 11" or 12"?

2) What is the more popular bell size for the Prestige, the 11.5 or the 12"?

3) Why?

Please excuse my ignorance on the subject. These may seem like silly questions but I'm just a simple tuba player...

Thanks in advance for you help. Rest assured I'm doing my own research as well, but the list is a great resource for exactly this sort of thing!

Al,

Thanks for the post. The new line of Besson instruments are absolutely top-notch. You won't be disappointed.

It seems that smaller Sovereign is the more popular model, being that if you wanted a large bell instrument - you can simply move up to a Prestige. I have played many of these new instruments and they are heads-above their predecessors. The major difference that you will feel in them is their free-blowing nature and upper notes that were horribly out-of-tune with previous models are now quite nicely set.

The larger model Prestige is the big seller here. On a recent trip to the Besson factory, I played almost 30 Prestige, and there was only one small bell model. I talked with Steve Mead about this and he said that the simply reason was that about 90% of the orders for the small bell are shipping to Japan. It seems that the Japanese players tend to like the smaller, more compact-sound of the 2051 instead of the larger sound of the 2052.

It seems like if you were to just purchase one model of each - I would go with a small bell Sovereign and a large bell Prestige. You won't be disappointed with either though, they are great instruments. Tell us what you think of them when you get them!

If you want, here are some production pictures of the new Besson instruments from a recent trip:

http://www.patstuckemeyer.com/Besson.html

All the best,

Pat Stuckemeyer

Thanks everyone! (especially Pat)

I've just placed the order for exactly what you prescribed. I already have one presold!

Thanks again!