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I'm a sophomore in highschool, and i am looking into buying a sousaphone since the ones at my school are in complete shambles. Should i try to get an american used sousaphone, or maybe look into getting a foreign made sousa? I'm not the richest in the world. However, i need something durable and resonable.

well whats wrong with the ones you use?
and always buy american used.
and whats your budget?

We have 8 sousas. only one works properly and thats a fiberglass yamaha. all the others either have air leaks, cracked fiberglass, or broken pipes in the valves section. i can really only spend about 2000. my friend got a silver king in pretty nice condition for that price.

I just had a friend buy a fiberglass Conn of of ebay for 1300. Hasn't arrived yet, but I will let you know when I hear something.

Oh, yeah, and welcome to TubeNet!

well your school should really repair those to make them playable.
why not see if you can make them playable before spending money on an instrument.
and you could do quite well with that budget.

Sadly... most of the high schools I've dealt with don't have a budget for repairs and it comes out of the pockets of the band boosters. The result is that the 'band dads' fix stuff with duct tape, bad solder repairs, and epoxy. The condition of the horns just continues to get worse until they are unplayable. At that point... they really don't have a good way to dispose of old school-owned instruments because of state accounting practice restrictions. As a result, the unplayable stuff stays 'on the books'. It's a catch-22.

However... most of the school systems around here do periodically allocate money for new stuff. If the band directors don't hang in there and raise total Hell... the accountants will then put it out for bid and buy the cheapest rather than the best tubas.

The high school in my community continually comes up with the money for new Yamaha stuff and avoids the pitfalls of the trash that's out there. Although a local middle school did buy some Eastman (Yamaha YBB-321) 'clones' three years ago. They have held up pretty well once the period of sticky and stained valves was over. However... those 'nice' horns shiny usually remain in the 'back room' except for public concerts. The still do their everyday rehearsals on Conn 15J tubas.

It's difficult to find six or eight 'matched' used sousaphones .... unless you deal with 'bloke'. I have yet to figure out where he finds the 'multiples'.

Coming from another high school student, It's not worth buying your own sousa to use for two more years of marching band if you're going to need a good concert horn down the road. Not worth it at all. Put the 2 g's away, add to it, and in a few years, buy yourself a kick-*** top of the line concert horn that will serve you better. You can put up with crappy marching horns. Trust me, I do it. We march Conn 20J's, the newest of which was made circa the 1950's. They're falling apart on us left and right, but it's not worth going to find one and buy it just to make my life easier.