TubeNet

Greetings,

I'm looking to purchase a BBb tuba sold by Dillion Music, which tuba is essentially a clone of the King 2341 BBb tuba. Will any of you please share your experiences with this horn? What are its pros and cons?

TIA,

Christopher

Dillon only lists 3 tubas on their site under the "Dillon" brand name, but neither one of
them is the 2341 clone. That should be a red flag for it being a "successful clone" such
as the Hirsbrunner clone & a few of the "Miraclones". One thing about these Chinese
clones...........there are a few pretty good models & a BUNCH of crappy ones! Play it
FIRST, then if you like it..........buy it, but I would strongly advise against buying one
online (sight unseen & unheard). BBC (Baltimore Brass) also has one on their site under
the JZ brand, but I've NEVER heard anything at all about these tubas, so that is NOT very
encouraging.

Just to be clear, Dillon Music has sold a number of these and their website is usually not up to date with ALL of their product line because they have so much. Tuba Exchange sells the same horn and can be seen here:
http://www.tubaexchange.com/tubas/te-2344l" target="_blank
There is one company in China making these and then stenciling whatever name they are asked to on the bells. The fit and finish is pretty much the same between "names". Meaning that the consistency from horn to horn has more to do with how the quality control was going on a particular batch rather than the "name" that was stenciled on the bell. I believe the factory is Jin Bao but I could be wrong. Anyway, usually the playability is related to the particular horn they decided to copy. If they decide to copy an original design that had pitch problems and was stuffy….guess what? At best, the copy will play the same if not worse. It rarely if ever works out that they improve the characteristics of the copy. If you like King 2341 models but don't want to haul out the cash for an original or shop for a well-used original then these copies are a good compromise for the money. If you want to get a fantastic horn that plays itself…well…look elsewhere. I guess it just depends on how much you're willing to pay.

Hope that helps,

Thank you all who commented on this thread.

Christopher

I tried out one of these at Dillon's while Matt was doing some work (excellent) on my King 2341.

My take on the Dillon 2341 is it plays kind of like a Conn 5J "Plus" if Conn actually made such a horn. Pretty in tune to itself but with a bore size and blowing impedance that splits the difference between a 5J and a King 2341. The ergonomics of the Dillon are different from the King also.

I don't know if the Dillon 2341 has the core of sound for a large ensemble, but in the right hands it could sing nicely in a quintet, etc. Notes are where you expect to find them; the valves would require some hand lapping to make me comfortable but that's about it - not bad for the price.

I used my King on a holiday concert with a 65 piece pops orchestra two weeks ago and had plenty of sound in reserve for everything we did. If you can swing the $$ get the King. It's like buying a 350cc motorcycle - once you learn to ride you really want the 900cc or larger.

Mark Heter

All Conns and Kings are made in the Eastlake Ohio factory - built in the 1960s by Mrs. H.N. White before she retired and sold to the Seeburg Corporation. The Conn factory in Elkhart Indiana is gone. The production workers (UAW) in Eastlake are mostly former King employees. The current corporate entity is Conn-Selmer, but the whole thing is owned by the parent of Steinway pianos. UMI was the interim company owner between Seeburg and Steinway.

Conn nearly disappeared during the time when the MacMillan textbook company owned them (1970s). They moved most manufacturing out of Elkhart to Abilene TX, and had to subcontract the trombones to King. This was a era of corporate "synergism" - when outfits like Norton Simon (who canned Hunt's tomato juice in steel cans) bought companies like Wheeling Steel and ran them into the ground through ignorance and incompetence. The thinking was "we can tomatoes in steel cans, so let's buy a steel mill!". With Conn this was translated to "we sell textbooks to schools, and schools have bands and buy musical instruments, so let's buy a band instrument company!". As tortured as this logic appears today, it as the prevailing thinking of the American business community back then. When I was visiting the King factory in the 1971-72 King was building Conn 88, 88H, 72H, 8H and 6H trombones. During this period Olds (Norlin) made 2J, 3J and 12 J and 5J tubas for a while then Norlin went bust. Amazingly King survived being owned by a jukebox company pretty well intact - probably from benign neglect.

Most of the old Conn models have disappeared in the transition - no more 20Js (and Conn sold thousands of those over the years), none of the current Conn cornets bear any resemblance to their famous models of the past (the old King models are gone too and the Conn euphonium - the one with the main tuning slide trigger Henry Smith helped develop). Most all of the King trombones still exist, the baritone horn is still made, the Eroica French horn and Conn 8D continue.

Classics like the King Super 20 and Conn Connstellation, Victor models, etc. are gone never to return. I marvel at the workmanship on my old Buescher and Conn cornets - you just don't see this kind of attention to detail anymore - even on high end stuff.

The current entity owns Holton, Buescher and Martin too. Unless you can guarantee them sales of 100,000 units, you won't be seeing any new Holton 345s or Martin Monster Basses either. The current models must be selling well, or they would have disappeared from the catalog (like that King/Conn CC and that quite a few players liked). Maynard's gone and so are MF trumpets.

Instrument companies end up in a shambles when they fold up - plans are lost, jigs, mandrels, engraving templates, disappear. In some cases subassemblies were contracted out to other manufacturers - just like car parts - and the designs just disappear into files that later mislaid and ultimately lost. There is no sense or logic to this - in Conn's heyday their research building was probably bigger than the entire King factory building - yet King survived intact and Conn did not.

Getting back to the original thread - if find a horn you like, take care of it and hang onto it!
Mark Heter

I'm not sure what that "Conn" 2341 comment's intent was. Maybe something having to do with the shared design and parts between the 5XJ and 2341 tubas? When I first played a prototype being shown around of what was to become the 52J tuba in late 1998, the tuba had the King logo on its bell. UMI's original intent, it seems, was that the CC tuba would be a King. When it was released for public consumption, however, it was under the Conn name.

Virtually all R&D, including work on bringing back a CC tuba, as well as adding Eb and F tubas, was put on hold while Steinway was up for sale during this calendar year. Now that the sale of Steinway, formerly a publicly traded company and now under the ownership of Paulson and Co., has been completed, it's my understanding that R&D will resume, and we could be seeing a larger offering of American made tubas.

While I don't know a thing about the Conn/King discussion, I can put in my two cents on the Dillon horn.

My tuba instructor knows the people at Dillon Music fairly well and while we were discussing the options for those looking to buy a tuba on a budget, he brought up the Chinese "Dillon" tubas. While it can't be said for most places, the Dillon tubas are supposedly pretty good horns. Matt, or whoever gets the tubas, hand picks the tubas that he believes will be quality horns. My instructor said that another student of his has a Chinese tuba that is working very nicely for him. He said more, but the gist of his speech was to try and not be turned off by the Chinese-made horns at Dillon and when selecting a tuba to try and weigh them equally.

That said, you should make the trip to Dillon and try out as many tubas as you can and just go with what feels comfortable and works for you. It may not be an option but if this will be the main instrument you're using for the foreseeable future, you need to give the car a test drive, so to speak

The Dillon "clone" of the King 2341 differs from the real King in two significant ways:
It's a smaller bore, and the mouthpiece receiver is mounted at a different angle. If you like to blow uphill this might be the right horn for you. I find it uncomfortable, but that's just my personal preference.

Uncle Markie wrote:I tried out one of these at Dillon's while Matt was doing some work (excellent) on my King 2341.

My take on the Dillon 2341 is it plays kind of like a Conn 5J "Plus" if Conn actually made such a horn. Pretty in tune to itself but with a bore size and blowing impedance that splits the difference between a 5J and a King 2341. The ergonomics of the Dillon are different from the King also.

I don't know if the Dillon 2341 has the core of sound for a large ensemble, but in the right hands it could sing nicely in a quintet, etc. Notes are where you expect to find them; the valves would require some hand lapping to make me comfortable but that's about it - not bad for the price.

It'd be quite interesting if one of the importers brought it over with an 18" bell, like the 5xJ options.