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i am going through the process of getting a 1281 for my army band. ive spent probably too much time on it at midwest and tusabtec and am quite pleased with the low range, sound, playability,... intonation also seemed fine but i did not have a tuner on me. could any users comment on that and any other things? the horn leans very slightly to the left and the valve angle isnt perfect for me, taking the thumb ring off helps, but the sum of the parts surpasses just about every other horn out there. please excuse my lack of capitalization and such, i am on my phone and away from a computer for a bit. thanks!

Have you played a Sam Gnagey horn? If you are looking for range, sound, playability and intonation, it would be worth looking into...

The pitch on my 1281 is fantastic. I have heard other owners say that they do not pull slides at all, but I pull the first slide here and there. I needed to have it aligned in order to do so easily.

The pitch on my 1281 is amazingly reliable. My F tuba is pretty finicky about the mouthpiece I use. For example, when I use a Laskey 30F, I find the intonation rather difficult in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th partials. Using a Laskey 30C, those problems are immediately erased. Luckily, I prefer the 30C.
I don't know if this is a common trend among 1281's but that's how my tuba works.

Perfect? No. Better than any other F horn available? Probably!

I've only had my 1281 a few weeks, so I'm still working out some of the quirks...but there aren't a lot to deal with. In my limited experience I've noticed some "opposite" tendancies from other F horns I've tried. For instance, for me/my mouthpiece/my horn, the top of the staff "G" runs very slightly high, rather than dreadfully flat like you'll find on most horns.

The 5th valve trigger fixes almost all of the issues I have with 1st valve combinations in the lower register (1 and 4 is a bit high for BBb). Without going into a detailed tuning chart, I think it is sufficient to say that you will not be having major intonation problems with this horn!

I've been playing this horn every free moment I get...its such a joy to play!

Thanks guys!

My 1281 has spectacular intonation. I've only played two of them...mine and another here in Chicago and they were both pretty spot on. Its almost as in tune as my B&S F...

I find that I only need to pull the 1st for Eb-D in the stave and push in for the same notes below the stave. I did also have my 5th slide cut (not a simple task, but very well done by Dana Hofer) as I found it a bit low for me on the 5-2-3 F#.

Anyone else put a Baer PVAK kit on theirs?

-Josh Wirt

Not to revive this topic, but I was curious what kind of success you had with the PVAK? Has Alan come out with a kit specifically for the 1281 yet? Any noticeable improvement? I'm looking at doing it as well, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it with such a new horn.