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I just received a JP 332-O this morning. This is the open-wrap F version of the 332. Meh, it's a trombone. Nice packing, nice case, nice presentation. (Note the little British flag trim on the case.) The slide tube extrusions are wavy like Jinbao. The slide is somewhat scratchy. The extrusions limit how much better it can get with a tune up. One joint at the neckpipe is slightly kinked. The trigger is pretty close to my chin. There is black felt pen writing on the rotor casing. Fortunately it's on top of the lacquer. The leadpipe may not be perfectly centered. (Where are my glasses?) The pitch is very decent and the F-attachment blows fine. The horn plays big and airy, but is not as well centered as others. I compared it first to a Xeno and a Bach, which are more money of course. And they were way better. I also compared to a new Getzen Capri 547, which is about the same money as the JP. The Getzen is much better centered and its slide is really excellent. Also consider the Getzen 747 or 725 as well, which are similar quality and price. The Conn 52H and 52HL may be worthy at that price range as well. The JP is just a little more effort to play. A big-air player might like the feel. I prefer a lighter touch. The JP has the look in color and style of a Conn, but it feels like a student horn that's just OK. And that's fine. Just don't expect something that's too good to be true for this price.

It depends upon where you're shopping, but it seems for about the same money as a JP you can get a nice US made horn with a great slide. Buy a JP if you can haggle a lower price and just need something, or if you find a great one and just love it. If you can spend a little more I think you'll get more of an heirloom. And I don't necessarily mean looking for a used trombone. Used trombones need slide tune-ups, and many folks prefer a plug and play setup without the repair hassle. There's nothing wrong with striving to purchase new if it inspires you. This JP trombone is certainly serviceable, but it's a horn that may hold back a better player. It's a trombone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-F

This report is pretty much why I decided to go with my "bottom end" Schiller 7B clone rather than one of the more upscale Chinese clones. I knew I'd almost certainly want to replace the lead pipe anyway (which I did with a Brass Ark BH62) -- and on the horn I got, I had to do this since the receiver was a bit out of round. Schiller offered to replace the slide, but after several months, I just decided to pull the pipe and put in a good one. Huge difference. Other than that, there were only a couple of minor fit/finish issues, and generally the fit and finish is very good. The slide is really very good, and was from the beginning. The main tuning slide is just a hair out of truly parallel, but isn't worth messing with. The valve slides are exactly on, and in fact can be swapped witih one another. The valves seem great. What more do you want? It's a trombone, and I'm an amateur community band player. It's true that this isn't the Holton TR181 I had 20 years ago. But it's a perfectly good, playable, and even attractive, bass trombone for about a $700 investment including the lead pipe. I figured "If there's something disastrously wrong with it, I'll just send it back. Otherwise, I'll fix it and still be ahead." That seems to have worked.

I could have paid anywhere from twice as much on up for a "better" 7B clone or other Chinese bass, but would it have effectively been better? I wasn't convinced, and honestly -- given he horn I got -- it's difficult to believe. I could have paid from five to six times as much for a decent used American or Japanese horn -- but couldn't find what I wanted. I did try to test a JP horn at the Tuba Exchange, but they didn't have any of the sort I wanted.

With the Ferguson L mouthpiece I'm now testing, the horn is certainly better than I am and is likely to remain so. If I get to the point where I need a really better bass trombone, I'll probably donate this one to a school and move on. It's a trombone. It works. I can't point to any problems it has (given the couple I fixed). The high range (octave above the staff) -- even with the wonderful Freguson L mouthpiece I've been trying since yesterday -- is difficult. Oh, wait -- that's me, and not the horn. Otherwise, just a wonderful sound and response in all registers. A trombone is a simple instrument.

This approach may not work for others, but it is an alternative.

I think the really critical questions are

1. How much better are the best Chinese instruments than the better Chinese instruments?
2. How much better are the better Chinese instruments than the "generic" Chinese instruments?
3. What exactly does "better" mean in these questions (for different customers/players)?
4. Is the price differential between generic and better, between better and best, and between generic and best justified (for a given customer's needs)?
5. How do you provide meaningful and reliable answers to these questions?

I THINK that there are (should be?) objective answers to 1, 2, and 3 in terms of finish, function, and performance that would be agreed upon by the knowledgeable and experienced. The response to 4 is much more subjective -- though a lot of people might be willing to say "The difference between x and y isn't worth the money." 5 is a good one and can probably be debated endlessly.

What's really important are answers like "The plating flakes off in a month," "It was impossible to get the hand slide in alignment," "It won't play in tune with itself," "You can't possibly align the valves," "It just sounds like crap no matter what you do," etc. Otherwise, a trombone is a tube you blow through and move a slide to adjust the pitch. If it works to the degree that you need it to, then it works.

What I'm sensing is that a few years ago a Chinese instrument was a Chinese instrument. Then some vendors (importers, whatever) began to attempt to distinguish their own "brands" -- with subsequent claims of differences and differences in prices. It's good to get reliable objective analyses on whether these claimed differences are accuracte and the price differences justified, to the degree that that's possible.

Alas, quality is often to be found in the little things -- and those may require just a little care and thought.

I just spent at least an hour in frustrating experimentation and diagnosis when I changed the bumpers in the second (Gb) valve on my bass trombone. Everything had been working fine, and then this morning I noticed some mild clanking. Looked at the original bumpers (which I'd shaved just a little bit when I got the horn), and one of them was a bit degraded. No problem, I thought.

Cut the bumper material, got it in, aligned the valve marks, reassembled, and ... clank. Hmmm ...

For some time I thought it was in the less-than-stellar-but-quite-functional-valve-arm-linkage-with-its-less-than-steller-ball-joints. But no, I determined after much careful trial and inspection. The less than stellar mechanism was working just fine and as quietly as one could expect (parts of it may be replaced at some point in the future).

After some more careful inspection I had to concede that the stop arm (stud? rod? whatever) that is supposed to contact the bumper was hitting the bumper holder (gripper? claw? whatever). When I got the horn I noticed that the little crescent-shaped part that holds the bumpers seemed a mite close to the valve bushing, and so there wasn't much you could shave off a bumper without getting to the metal. But good enough -- I thought.

Ummm ... Not really good enough. It had worked for about six months, but things were just a bit too close for easy replacement and adjustment of the bumpers. What to do?

Move the holder back from its current position so that more bumper material could be exposed while keeping the valve in alignment and avoiding the arm from banging into the holder? That would probably be the "right" thing to do. But not enticing, since it would require at least drilling and tapping two holes in each valve, and (maybe ?) filling the old holes depending on how the dimensions worked out.

It's a cheap horn, and so I took the cheap way out: file down the stop arm to provide enough clearance around the corner of the bumper keeper and avoid the clank. It works, is minimally invasive, can always be reversed if necessary, and the stop arm had enough material to make it unproblematic.

This is an example of "hidden quality" (or hidden low quality) that might take some time to discover. I'm still happy with the horn (given what I paid for it), but I like to tinker and am willing to. It is, in Bloke's words, acoustically fabulous (with the replacement lead pipe), and it otherwise works wonderfully well. Perhaps it should be thought of as the "Schiller 7B bass trombone kit." Please note that I have not asked Jim Laabs Music to either repair or replace this instrument. My thinking on this is that given the type of problems I've encountered, I have no reason to believe that a replacement would be better -- so I'm better off fixing it myself and not stretching out a replacement experience over a possibly long time.

I would guess that the offerings from the likes of Packer, Wessex, and Mack Brass are of higher hidden quality (my euphonium and tuba suggest this), and that their customer service is up to the task in cases where problems of hidden quality are discovered.