TubeNet

Hi Everyone,
I was wondering if anybody has tried a set of MAW valves in one of the newer King 2341's? I'm pretty happy with my horn, but everything can be improved, right? A bit more low end might be nice, some slurring help might be cool, and I find the valves in the King to be the 'Achilles' heel' of these horns anyway. Any comments or experience?
Thanks.
Peace
ASG

I tried them. I can't say they improved or changed anything about the horn. But you and others may have different experiences.

bloke wrote:Does the valve section completely unbolt?

It does, although I have never taken it off myself, Matt, at Dillons took it off one day for a chem clean of the valve section one day while I was over there.

bloke wrote:My experience with later-made 2341 tubas is (price/production pressures?) that the piston/casing tolerance isn't as close as (well...) it was in the 1960's.

I'm wondering if you could unbolt your valveset, ask Martin to sell you some barely-oversize pistons, and send the valveset + new pistons to Dave Secrist. You would end up with fabulous and fabulously-fitted pistons.

I was considering sending my horn off to Martin to do the valves and having him change the 4th valve tubing slide while he was at it, and I hadn't heard of Dave Secrist until now. My horn is committed to a road gig until January right now, so I was hoping to hear some opinions on the MAW valves while I have some time to decide. My 2 old King's definitely have better valves than my newer one, in fact, they're what make me think that this horn can be improved.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Everything Bloke said.

The design of those horns isn't half bad at all and it could be argued that it's one of the better *designed* BBbs available on the market. However, the assembly just plain stinks and isn't appreciably better than some Chinese stuff.

If I owned one I would pull it completely apart and rebuild the entire horn from the ground up possibly with more and/or different bracing. In my limited experience, there's enough flex in the horn that a small bump in the wrong place can put pressure on the valves and make them hang.