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Hi guys.

I never played it.
How your experience with it?
How it plays? In tune?
It plays good with a full orchestra?

Thanks

I did my undergrad with a guy who had one of these. Good horns, but they take a lot of air. The one I played was extremely free blowing and felt closest to an Alexander C that I had the opportunity to play at a community band. Not saying they were all like this, but that is what it most reminded me of. Intonation was fine on this one with it only needing the usual adjustments. The bonus was that you had access to the main slide so you could tune any of the pitches you needed to with ease. The horn I had the opportunity only had 4 valves, though I have seen 5 valve versions, but I don't know if they came that way.

I would assume it would work well in an orchestra as this one worked just find in a full Symphonic Band with only two of us on tuba. A good person to reach out to would be Dan Schultz as he is, I believe, the de facto Marzan expert.

I briefly played a 5 valve one and thought it was pretty good.

I really liked the sound, response, and the HUGE low register. However, on this particular instrument, the intonation was pretty wacky, and I definitely would have needed to use the that main slide a lot!

All of the Marzan tubas I've seen... worked on... or bought and sold have been good horns. I play only BBb so my experience with the CC variety.is limited to what I need to check beyond playing a simple scale when it comes off the bench to make sure everything is working.

Solid tubas, make sure the linkages are good, because they likely were string action originally and may have been converted.

Price should be between $3,000 and $4,000, and that's a lot of horn for the money.

No problem in orchestra at all, projection is really good on these things.

Which horn cnb be compared in size the Marzan.
Is it 5/4?
I know that there is a lot of horn with different style I know the Matzan is unique, but how it can be accept to be an old horn?
I mean about an audition for an orchestra.
Or it doesn't matter? The most important is your sound?
Sorry for so many questions


Thanks

It's a big 4/4 or small 5/4. Doesn't really matter, but it's not gigantic and maybe a little bigger than normal.

You might get some.weird looks and have to explain what it is, but they pla and sound great, and are German-made high quality instruments.

I love mine.
With the tuning slide on top, it's as good as your ears.
With mine, D on the staff is flat, everything else is pretty good.
I got several compliments on the sound from guest conductors.
It sounds bigger than it is.

DoubleBass wrote:Which horn cnb be compared in size the Marzan.
Is it 5/4?.....

Yes... I would call it a 5/4. The bore is .752". The body is virtually the same as the large piston tubas made in the Bohm & Meinl tubas. That would include the Bohm & Meinl 'symphonic' tubas.... the York 'Master' tubas.... and the Nirschl tubas that were made in Germany.

Hi Dan.

Like a Mira 188? It is a 4/4+.
Thanks

Sort of, but just a totally different shape. I owned a piston Marzan, and then bought a 188 right afterwards. I thought the Marzan seemed a bit bigger... they are just different shaped tubas, so it's hard to compare.




The Marzan rotary tubas are the same shape/size as the piston tubas, just with a different valve section, so physically, this picture should still be helpful. The Marzan rotary tuba will be less direct than the 188, and will have a broader sound.

The 4/4 versus 5/4 assessment is kind of difficult with these horns. They definitely play bigger than a 4/4, at least to my ear. The bore measurement is a tad deceptive because there isn't as much pipe to go through before you hit the valve block, compared to a Mirafone or Alexander, and there's plenty of "girth growth" once you get past the valves. In my opinion the famous copper Sander that Fred owned, in many respects an inspiration for the slant rotor design, plays a lot smaller than they do. Perhaps that's partly due to the metal, but also possibly due to some other dimensional aspects, I'm not sure. All I did when I had the copper Sander in my hands was play it and eyeball it, didn't do measurements or photos for comparison.

We can compare with a PT-606?
I'm owner of a Conn 56J that I like but I need a horn more large.
The Marzan is most bigger that my Conn?

Thanks