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In my search for an affordable and easy-playing (air-efficient) BBb tuba it seems to be coming down to a choice
between one of the Jin Bao Alex clones (like Mack Tuba's TU-200) and a King 1241. I'm interested
in any comments anyone has about these horns or the choice between them.

Wow that gets old fast.

1241 - great horns
Chinese horns, tried two, sent 'em back - just my .02. Not familiar with the model you are talking about.
Kyle R.

http://goo.gl/maps/gBoJt

It's not all that bad a trip to go find out for yourself what you think of the Mack. You didn't mention where the King is, but there is less question about it, I reckon.

Thanks very much for the comments! Here's the dilemma. I could probably trade my Besson 3+1 Bbb and $800-$1000 for a King 1241. I also have my eye on a used tuba like the Mack TU-200 that's available for $1000. If I bought that I'd sell my Besson for $800, already have an offer. This all has come to pass since I posted this thread. . .so it's $800 out of pocket for the King, but just about $300 for the Jin Bao. While I think I might like the King a little better, the $500 price differential is pretty persuasive.

I just have not played either of these, so I can't compare them and wondered if anyone here could.Ggetting the Jin Bao for $1000 instead of $1600 means I could get most of my money back out if I sold it.

Any thoughts?

Hello given that you already own a Besson what is it about the king or the Jin bao that attracts you?
And will that attraction out live any regrets when the Besson is gone?

As to resale a search of the for sale section will show that recently most of the clones offered for sale sold either quickly or reasonably quick.

As has been suggested above the best advice would be to try both tubas personally as when push comes to shove only you can judge for your self.

royjohn wrote:Thanks very much for the comments! Here's the dilemma. I could probably trade my Besson 3+1 Bbb and $800-$1000 for a King 1241. I also have my eye on a used tuba like the Mack TU-200 that's available for $1000. If I bought that I'd sell my Besson for $800, already have an offer. This all has come to pass since I posted this thread. . .so it's $800 out of pocket for the King, but just about $300 for the Jin Bao. While I think I might like the King a little better, the $500 price differential is pretty persuasive.

I just have not played either of these, so I can't compare them and wondered if anyone here could.Ggetting the Jin Bao for $1000 instead of $1600 means I could get most of my money back out if I sold it.

Any thoughts?

Trade your Besson.

Ok. A good Besson is fairly air efficient, so i guess you are not among the lucky ones, but $800-$1000 is cheap

As for the Jinbao. I'll admit to that!. Some of them are really good 'players', they really are. And that should be
the most important, right?. But it ain't the whole story. It's poor craftsmanship from plate work to plating
so you need to look at is as a rental as it will have close to none 2nd hand value at all and also cost you
some frustrations on the way.

Get the Besson fixed up. Valve-job if it's really old, dents at the wrong places etc...
You are looking for answer in the wrong direction

With the Jinbao there certainly will be fit and finish issues. But if you can live with that, I expect you'll enjoy playing it, and that price differential is hard to resist. Unless the King has recently been restored, there are probably some of those issues with it as well.

A dealer told me yesterday the name of a recent customer for a Jinbao tuba similar to the one you're considering. I'm not going to "drop" the name, but suffice it to say that you would be in extraordinarily good musical company. I don't see how you can go wrong with either tuba. If you could scrape up a way to try them, I still think that would be ideal, of course.

Thanks for your comments, guys,

As to the Jin Bao, I heard the same story about a player at a major US orchestra. I was a bit surprised.

My Besson has lots of dings and plating loss. The valves work fine. It's quite in tune. It just seems to
me (I haven't played a lot of other horns) to take a heck of a lot of breath. The fact that it's hard to
manage @ 29lbs and has a pretty high receiver to reach are minor issues, too. I may be way off here
and just unable to summon up enough breath to play the tuba in long phrases the way I think it should
be played. At a normal dynamic level, how long a phrase should I be able to play? Ten seconds, twenty
seconds??

In fairness to the Besson I have to say that I tried seven different mpcs in the Besson, a Mirafone 186
and a Bach Mercedes (a clone of the O-99), and the only thing that made any of them more air-
efficient was a rather small mpc with a smaller throat than the rest. Other than that, they all seemed
to require about the same amount of air to sustain a long note at mp. I can do thirty seconds on most
mpcs and 45 seconds with a very tiny note and a very tiny mouthpiece. IDK if there is any difference
when you start to play at normal levels between the tubas, that was just the way that I chose to test
them and the mpcs. Any feedback on this is appreciated.

I'm about ready to ship the Besson, but I'm not buying anything else before a play test and will be
taking a trip to do that next weekend, weather permitting. I certainly wouldn't buy a horn that seemed
to have major intonation problems or mechanical issues.

Appreciate any further comments.

I`d keep the Besson ! But thats just me . I really would like to try one of those mack brass horns .i you do buy one tell me how you like it .hope you get the horn you want

Having played an older Besson BBb, I can understand the air need when playing those horns. The leadpipes are larger and the compensating systems both add to the air requirements to make the horn play. They are just very inefficcient in my humble opinion.

In compairing the King to the Jinbao, I have had both horns side by side. The King is lighter and more expensive. My friends new King bell is so thin the action of setting the horn on its bell is already colapsing the bell metal. I had a friend accidently step on the Jinbaoi bell and you can't tell it ever occured. A Jinbao Chineese horn doesn't work well with mouthpieces with an inner rim over about 32.6mm. a 33mm will make them play flat and the tuning slides tend to be too short to compensate.

I found intonation to be good with both horns.

If you were to look into the Jinbao horns I'd recommend going to Mack Brass as he is a fellow player and is a sponser here. He has done a lot of play testing of the Chineese horns and markets only the good ones he's found.

Hello ! I don`t know if you ever got a new tuba or not but I got a Jinbao 200 a week or so ago . Its a really well made horn if you can belive it . It plays in tune for me fairly well F`s play a bit sharp while the rest of the notes play a bit flat . But after a bit of playing it all levels out farly good . Tuba sounds good too . I still like my yamaha and my Besson`s better .But for a new horn that plays and sounds good and is well made for less than $2000 you just can`t beat it ! If you want a pro horn I wouldn`t buy it but if your in a school band or community band like I play in It would make you a awesome horn . But Thats just my two cents