BMB tubas opinion

[besson900]

Hi guys

I'm thinking about new CC tuba and I saw BMB 6/4 tuba but the price is very low.And here is my question - do you have any experience with those tubas, I'm afraid that price is that low because they are "same good" as Chinese made tuba.Please write me how long you have this tuba and do you have some problems with pistons, material or other thinks after longer playing on it

All best
Paweł

[thevillagetuba]

A simple search of the forum will lead to many threads asking exactly what you are with lots of really good answers...

They are good horns, in the upper ranks of horns from China. Some people love 'em, others not so much. They have normal intonation quirks---nothing all that weird. Those that have owned them have mentioned no problem with them holding up over time or with heavy use. Biggest drawback in a lot of people's opinion is the dependent 5th, but that depends on how you use that valve.

[PaulMaybery]

I currently have a BMB CC 6/4 for sale at Baltimore Brass. In short I am selling simply because being 70 years old, it is a bit large and heavy for me to lug around.
I used it steady as my main horn for about 3 years and had nothing but compliments on the sound. That particular tuba has a few modifications: Dillon AGR, and 4 Saturn water keys which make things rather convenient. Prior to putting it up for sale I had all the little dents and pings smoothed out. I also had several of the braces resoldered to be sure the instrument is in solid shape. The valves are extremely fast and smooth. The dependent 5th valve works fine. I did find that neoprene O rings worked considerably better than those little rubber bands. Yes it is Chinese, but it is a very well put together instrument and with the current mods stands to be a bit better for the extra attention. It is not to be compared with the cheap Chinese imports. This is not a clone, but rather a design that Dick Barth produced based somewhat on the CSO York. The price on this one at $5995.00 reflects that it is 3 years old and also I that I obtained the istrument on a trade so am not really losing any money on it. I believe that new, this tuba runs close to 8K. As far as intonation, the 5th partial is a bit low, as on virtually all 6/4 horns of this design. (1/2 works fine on E) The low register is enormous and all of the notes top to bottom are clear sounding with no weird stuffy notes. I tried a few others of the BMBs at various conferences and they are pretty darn consistant, you might say like "peas in a pod." IMHO this particular one is as good as any of them. The only downside that I had to deal with was that it pretty much required using a tuba rest. But that actually made things much more ergonomic in the long haul.