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tubawarrior wrote:I have heard of people borrowing instruments from music stores to play-test for a while to decide if they want to purchase them or not, and I'm wondering how to go about doing this?

Most stores sell on approval. That means you buy the instrument, and then you have a period of time in which you can finalize your decision. Then, if you decide against it, you can return the instrument and receive a refund.

This was true at WWBW the last time a helped buy an instrument there (a $15,000 bassoon).

I don't know of any of them that will let you just borrow an instrument, unless you are famous or a personal friend of the store owner. But if you are seriously ready to buy anyway (in other words, if you are a real customer), then buying on approval is just as good.

Rick "noting that perfect condition is rightly required if you return it" Denney

You can spend a lot of money on shipping for play testing, though. I decided at some point that if I ever want to buy another tuba (actually pretty unlikely at this point, although I still drool over some of them) I'll just fly to someplace that has a bunch of them and play them while I'm there. Then, if there are one or two that I really want to spend more time with, it would be worth having them shipped to me for a playtest.

And....stores generally will have a much better idea of how to pack a tuba for shipping. Individuals tend to not understand what the shipping companies are going to do to the tuba (throw the box, drop the box, box falls off forklift, someone runs over box with dump truck) and you can receive tubas that are in all states of having been smashed. Then no one is happy.

MA