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Joe-
A good time to bring this with the huge Int'l MusicMesse China 2014 being next week in Shanghai.....JinBao is MUCH better than before, but as you state, improvement is still needed so a 'brand new' item doesn't need work.....same sadly goes for the Europeans and Americans...
Mark

bloke wrote:I don't like unnecessary noise, and I don't like "make do" when "do " is easier.

+1
Mark

This is just another manifestation of the whole price-point mentality. A fine instrument repair technician who has worked with the Chinese for years related to me about how he had witnessed that, for soldering ferrules and tubing together, the Chinese copmpany had taken careful measurements, and issued the solderers pieces of flat solder that were supposed to be enough to seal a particular joint, and not one particle more. He said that these solder strips were never enough, and on his next flight over, he took a 5lb roll of wire solder, gave it to the technicians and told them to fill every joint if they wanted to build a good tuba. He said that it was not long before a bean-counter came running out, exclaiming that they couldn't do that, as it would increase the cost of production by $0.30 per tuba . . . . .

As long as people demand more, for less money, there will be some people trying to accomodate their wishes, and the buyers richly deserve what they get.

I must mention that I have worked on a higher-priced Chinese tuba in the past three months that, once I chemically-cleaned it, and did a bit of extra TLC on the rotors and linkage, it actually felt rather nice. I have no problem with a company that takes the time to build things right, but there is no short-cut to quality.

On the issue of the noise of the ball linkage clanging on the stop arm/spindle. I have toyed with the idea of going down 1 size on the rod end bearings (unibal or whatever you call it) It would mean rethreading the end of the push rods down to m3 or m2, and while a smaller end bearing would be creating more tolerance, (and less chance of clanging) it has the drawback of being a bit fragile. IMHO, the rods and balls are already a bit "under engineered." I happen to play rather aggressively and heavy in the finger department. I had noticed yesterday after only playing a few charts, a valve on the cimbasso had screws coming loose on the bumper plate, and making yet another noise. Please understand i am in love with my Wessex cimbasso and when played "politely" things seem to work just fine. When played with a positive and heavy hand, problems start coming up. Little things like that are a pain, when they could be engineered adequately in the first place. Yes, the manufacturers and their American/Euro importers need to address these issues.

A replacement stop arm with a wider swing radius would help for starters. My cimbasso has 5 valves that are all way to close in that department.