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Dear Tuba players,
In my shop I recently received an eb-tuba from my friends in Flums, Switzerland. Tuba players
have asked for the tiny compensator that was quite popular in the eighties/nineties among professional musicians.
Does anyone of you know this instrument? Please post your opinions on the instrument.
NB: Sorry for the bad MMS picture quality.

I would love to try one of these to see if I could reach it, but that is probably a slim possibility.

MA

WILLSON made one for my company last November (2008). If you ask for one, they build one!
The one pictured above is brand new!

Tubas use to be approx +/- 3 months.
Euphoniums often much longer.

Yes, very fine little tuba, built like a tank too!

My pupil got hers from Alex Kidston a few years back.

CB

Willson uses the practice of telling their instrument bores as the outer diameter of the male branches of the 2nd slide. That makes comparisons less than easy. The Besson 980/981/981/983 Eb tubas usd to have a 17.5mm/0.689" bore when made in the UK. The Willson Eb comper is said to have an 18mm bore, which with a wall thickness of 0.5mm translates to a 17mm/0.660" bore.

I am not aware that the Brits ever made small compensating Eb tubas with less than a 15" bell, and then these Imperial/New Standard models had the same frames as the Sovereign models listed above here.

There used to be a Regent/Westminster/Oxford small Eb tuba with a 0.650" bore and 3 non-compensating top valves. The intonation was said to be very bad, but when one had realised that the 3rd slide had been made way too short with the purpose to make it fit into the case, then a pulling made it no worse than any other 3 valve instrument.

Apparently a few Eb tubas of this size were made with 3+1 non-compensating pistons. I would certainly have liked to have some available for students, back when I taught brass.

Belw here are photos of the only such tuba, a B&H Regent, I ever saw documented.

Klaus