Besson tubas

[tubamichel]

which makes Besson tubas now?

what brand has recovered the "drawings" of "Besson London" ?

[peter birch]

the Besson brand is now owned by Buffet Crampon. A number of firms say that they have the original designs, and or tooling, including York, London Musical instruments and Stirling Brass.

[iiipopes]

By "original tooling" what is meant that these firms claim to have part or all of what may have been in the original Edgeware Road factory.

All of these firms have to some extent some former employees of pre-bankruptcy Besson, so they all will have knowledge of how the horns are "supposed to be."

From what I have seen, these firms, especially York and LMI, are so focused on making exact copies of pre-bankruptcy Bessons that they have some of the negative aspects (especially ergonomics) still as well as the positives.

[Dan Schultz]

Buffet-Crampon is manufacturing the Prestige euphoniums in Germany (Meinl). It's hard telling where the student lines are being made. They are slowly getting their parts program in order.

As someone already mentioned.... some of the original Besson (London) tooling is scattered around between York and Sterling brands. Some of the York parts will fit the old Besson 'New Standard' lines.

[imperialbari]

From a Norwegian repairman, himself playing a york Eb compensating Eb tuba, I heard that despite York attempting closeness to the original Besson, the York basses a lighter. The metric supply of sheet brass is thinner than the old one based on the Imperial measuring system.

My 981 from 1999 has very heavy walls of the male slide branches.

Klaus