TubeNet

Hi, I'm Marco, I've just registered to the forum. I play a conn 56j CC which is wonderful to me, but I think it's not perfect with intonation together with the trombones. I thought about taking a king 2341 which is based on the conn but is in BBb. Anyone can tell me if the king is a valid alternative to the 56j?

P.s. I like the sound of American tubas

Marco

Eastman CC IS the alternative you are looking for. Good luck.

Agreed. The Eastman is the way to go. A superior instrument to both of those horns.

Sidanas wrote:Hi, I'm Marco, I've just registered to the forum. I play a conn 56j CC which is wonderful to me, but I think it's not perfect with intonation together with the trombones. I thought about taking a king 2341 which is based on the conn but is in BBb. Anyone can tell me if the king is a valid alternative to the 56j?

P.s. I like the sound of American tubas

Marco

It's the other way around. The Conn CC 5XJ series was based on the King 2341. The King came first (in some form or another, by about a century ago) and the Conn came later (by only a decade or two ago).

Search the forums and you will find the threads where Matt Walters had significant input to the prototype of the 5XJ series. The differences between the prototype and production models will help you in determining if, indeed, the Eastman will serve your needs.

You might want to try removing the 5th valve on your 56J. I did that on my 52J a while back. It unbolts pretty easily. It really doesn't belong there where it is located and was basically an afterthought after the horn was designed and built. I went to Home Depot and bought plastic tubing to replace the tube coming out of the 5th valve. The results were pretty amazing, but I couldn't move the slide. I liked it enough so, that I had a very well known and respected repair person from the NY area, whom I'm looking forward to seeing next week in DC, build me a straight tube to screw on, replacing the 5th valve tube. I just left the linkage and thumb lever intact. I used a twisty to secure the loose linkage rod to one of the valve slides. The tuba blew much more freely, notes slotted better and the pitch was probably improved. It was just a better playing tuba. I put the 5th valve back only for large ensemble pieces requiring a lot of low notes.

Another thought is that you contact Sam Gnagey to see if he has any of his 4/4, CC tubas for sale. His are built from King 2341 bodies and cut to CC. The Gnagey tuba I had was like the 5XJ on steroids - much improved pitch and response over the 5XJ. It would probably cost around as much as the Eastman, which is another fine choice.

At some point a few years ago, although I don't know if it is available now, you could get a bypass tube from the factory to replace the 5th valve circuit as posted above. A friend of mine did that for his, and it did improve resonance and tone significantly.

The problem, as alluded to above, is that when the 5XJ series went into production, instead of putting the 5th valve where Matt recommended, the Cyborg put it in a different place, which fouled up everything and really damped the enthusiasm and the potential for what a 5XJ tuba could have been.