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This is my first post on here... yay me.

I will preface this all by saying my primary instrument is the French horn. In a prior life, I use to be decent. Then I picked up the Tuba and had fun playing it as a change of pace; enough that I even bought one. Then life happened and the instruments went into the closet.

Now, life has happened again and I have a son. A week or so I brought out the Tuba bad the Horn to show him. This has now become an at least twice nightly thing where we have to play. He even liked to try blowing and buzzing his lips.

As wonderful as all this is, I always get really nervous considering the value of the two and the dent potential. What I'd like to do is get some other instruments that if they get some dents and dings I won't feel as guilty.

So, I've had my eye on some of the Jin Bao stenciled horns; specifically a Euphonium and Piccolo Trumpet. I have seen a lot of positive opinions on the 1150 euphonium, I see where Mack Brass, Wessex and Jim Laab all have a version. However, I see nothing on the 1140/41 non-compensating euphonium and the only one I see is the Schiller 400 and no one talks about it. They look to be about half the price, which is appealing considering it may get some dings and dents as we learn together. However, I don't want it to be a complete POS that dies or the valve casing or so thin I can blow a hole through them.

Next on my list is a piccolo trumpet... no real reason except they are neat and small. Has anyone here played with one of the Jin Bao either piston or rotary models? Any thoughts?

Thanks-

Welcome to Tubenet! You will be able to get some advice here and some of it may be better than mine.

I don't have any experience with JIn-Bao instruments, but I would suggest that you also be on the lookout for used instruments. They can be found at garage sales, pawn shops, flea markets, as well as in music instrument stores. On-line also, but if you want to look it over first...? There is a classified section here on Tubenet too. Most of these sellers will be knowledgeable about what they are selling (mostly tubas.) Craigslist also. Almost everywhere prices will be negotiable, and cash helps. Instruments that already have some dents are not a bad option. They will often play well enough and are cheaper and won't be a major concern when it gets dropped or banged up against something.

Your son is quite young yet? We have a grandson who at one year old was able to blow notes on the tuba and was quite excited about his uncles' drum corps participation. Then they aged out and years passed. He has started band this year in middle school and is playing flute. (After reporting that at the instrument try out that he was told he would be good at euphonium.)

Good luck and enjoy the experience.

jrm1504 wrote:However, I see nothing on the 1140/41 non-compensating euphonium

Wessex do not sell such a euphonium because they do not play very well - so we cannot recommend, and do not want to sell horns with which customers will be dissatisfied.

I have a student that plays on the 3-valve version of the Jinbao non-comp euph. It is a decent horn, especially for the price. This horn is played by quite a young student, though not as young as it sounds like your son might be, and the horn has held up to the abuse quite well.

bloke wrote:It's interesting how it will often be suspected (and I'm not zooming in on this post - I'm thinking back to dozens and dozens of posts over the years) that instruments from a newly-imported-from geographic location (in the past: Japan / Brazil / Russia / now: China) are "thin", and questions are rarely raised (at least, not the first questions asked) about tolerance/alignment types of issues.

I suspect the main reason that very few importers are messing with the non-compensating versions of Jinbao-made euphoniums is because the *relative* cost of them is so little less.

hurriedly-done polishing jobs...but I've also seen "high grade" versions of the 3-valve and 4-valve non-comp. euphoniums. A friend of mine (a jazz trombonist retired from the Navy) purchased a high-grade 3-valve euphonium from some eBay seller, and is quite pleased with it. Again, it was only a few hundred bucks (not thousands) less than the $1000 pricing that can currently be found in the USA for the silver plated 3+1 compensating Jinbao "high grade" instrument.

I'm not questioning them because they are Chinese... more because not much is said about the 1140/41. Go read what trumpet forums have to say about Chinese imports. Man, you would think if the copper was sourced in China that is used in the brass to make their Bach they would disown the Bach.

A post I found particularly good was this one from 2011:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=44677&start=12#p385810

He scored a bunch of the horns and trying new ones (specifically a clone of an Alexander 103). So based on that and what Neptune said above, they have both culled the 1140/41.

But based on what Neptune said above, the reason

Back to the issue: you have a son whom you wish to equip with a decent brass instrument.

The Wessez Dolce Euph is very fine, and can - if you are lucky - be found for around 600 £ used, at least that's what I got mine for.

Buuut - for a beginner, an large bore compensated euph requires quite some air. I suggest rather looking for some of these as used instruments

- bariton 3v Bb with small shank mouthpiece, yamaha, besson, wessex ...
- euph 3v Bb model, for example yamaha YEP-201, also with with small shank mouthpiece
- Eb alto horn - work great for kids of age 6 to 10 years, my son started on a yamaha and did progress fine.
- alto trombone - good for short arm length (yamaha, wessex, B&S ...)
- single Bb french horn - small-bore Hoyer horns can be found relatively cheap used, or yamaha

Advantage of all these is that they require less air than a large-bore euph or tuba, and are more easy to handle due to lesser weight.

You'll get a better price/quality than buying new, and probably the same resale value. Plus a few additional dents would not make you cry in grief.

Check out your local e-bay, music store or advertisments, I am sure you can find something for a few bucks that works fine for your kid.

And by the way - learn your kids to play melodies by ear, and transpose them by ear into other keys. And start early with different notattions - bass clef, brass band G-clef, tenor clef. This way they learn fast to abstract from the written music. My daughter could at an age of 12 play 3 different clefs and was able to transpose simple melodies on the fly, which she did benefit a lot of.

Best luck,

MC