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Comments on Conn 52 54 or 56J Tuba ?
Are they good ? I heard the piston have some problems ?

I have an earlier 52J that I absolutely love. It is a wonderful horn, for my purposes and liking. The vales are good...although i did have nylon valve guides put on and also got my hands on some better springs than the stock ones. The only thing I can say is that if you are interested in one of these horns.....try out as many as possible, since as i have said before on this topic "all conn 5xJ'2 are NOT created equal" My personal horn was good enough to make it into the NY Philharmonic with its original owner (my teacher) but there are others I (and he) would not touch with a 10 foot pole

I tried one of these at the last ITEC and was not impressed. There are some people that love them, I am not one of those. The sound was not impressive and it was not a free blowing horn. It felt a little on the small side of a 4/4 horn. That was just my impression. As I said, other people love these horns.

To each his own.

I had a 54J on trial from Baltimore Brass about 8 months ago. I was not very happy with it at all. Intonation was the biggest issue. I tried different mouthpieces (MF2, Helleberg 7B, Vincent Bach 24AW, and others) and nothing worked. The open notes, some were 20 cents sharp, others were 20 cents flat, and some were right on. I went to a convention and Conn was there and I tried telling them of all this, but they just shook me off and no answer except alluding to the fact that I have no idea how to play a CC Tuba. Oh well they lost a customer. Also, the 5th rotory valve is in an awful location; you need to pretty much take the whole 5th valve system apart just to get cap off the bottom of the valve to oil it, clean it, etc. Anyway I returned that ASAP and waited for a Mira 1291 from Dillon Music. Haven't been happier. I suggest trying to get your hands on one of those. Stay away from those Conns!