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Let's talk about the St. Pete 209N. I think that St. pete gets a pretty bad wrap and I have never really understood why. I waited until I owned my tuba for quite sometime until I posted anything to make sure the horn was solid. I have now owned it for about two years. My horn has five rotors and overall I haven't noticed a major problem with them. The second one is a little noisey but everything seems to be relatively as long as you keep up on the maintenance. Tuning is pretty accurate it tunes well with a lot of different horns. I play with a lot of different toned horns BBb and F tubas especially. The upper range speaks really well and the lower range is pretty strong but I have definitely played on horns with better lower rage. I don't know about any of the other St. Pete horns... but if you want a brand new tuba that is affordable and will be worth the money the St. Pete 209N is a great bargain. That being said I wish I would have waited until I had been a little closer to college before buying my own horn. I would have done a lot of more searching for a nice used horn that would have been worth the same amount maybe a little more. Still very happy with my St. Pete and hope it lasts me many more years. Any questions I would be more than happy to answer.

Very decent tubas. Big sound, easy response and well in-tune.
The old ones (from late 90s - early 2000s) had crappy linkage/rotors that had issues. Vince later had German-made rotors & linkage installed on them, so the quality and price shot up. The ones made after the mid-2000s are very decent, IMO.

Funny. I'm thinking reference to the Chinese clones... and yet ... they have not to my knowledge cloned the St. Pete. HOWEVER ... Weril, aka and/or dba Weingrill in Brazil, has "referenced" the St. Pete. I played on it a bit when I was in Elkhart some years ago as Gemeinhart was handling them along with what became BMB. As it happened I had a St. Pete in the car that I was taking to Baltimore for consignment. Dick Barth and I compared the two side by side and even interchanged tuning slides. I was much impressed with Weingrill's workmanship, and it was also in lacquered brass which gave it a somewhat more serious look and I felt a stronger more complex sound. I believe they are still producing them but I have not seen any in the US since that time.

I have always felt the size/bore ratio was always out of proportion. What is it,like .840?