The new tuba just arrived! Jupiter 582

[Anterux]

Hello!

One of the bands I play bought the Jupiter 582 L

I have it at home and maybe I will have it for some months.

I use to play a yamaha 201 and a MW 25.
I also played some time other Jupiters, some Amati (very common(?) here in Azores) and other not so known (and not so good) chinese instruments.

It is very soon to make a close comparisson. But, for now, I must say that I am well impressed with this big Jupiter.

Without doubt the best Jupiter Tuba I ever played.

I will play it for a while and then I will post some feedback and photos.

I would apreciate some feedback from you that have already played this tuba.

Sorry for strange English, still working on that

Thank you all

Antero

[Lew]

I agree that the Jupiter 582 is a very competent BBb tuba. The ones I have tried have played well, with a decent sound. I prefer my King 2341, but I think that, especially for the money, they are very good horns. I haven't owned one so can't comment on reliability. How they stand up to long term use is the only question mark I would have about them.

[Kevin Hendrick]

Sorry for strange English, still working on that

You're doing fine!

[Liberty Mo]

The first new horn I bought was a Jupiter 582. It served me very well in solo, quintet, and large ensemble playing. It was a great horn at the price and would do just about anything most tubists would want in a BBb, at the time I was on a limited budge. The fit and finish was very good, it was silver. It was also the second generation design with the horizontal second valve slide. It came with very sturdy hardcase and was a fun horn to play. I thought a it played well in tune. My only gripe was that the upper register seemed to loose the warm sound that it got in the lower register, but this was probably due more to my playing. The other gripe was with the valves, they seemed to "gum" up easily until a visit to a repair tech fixed this. I moved on to a different horn for personal reasons, a King 2341 (liked the ergonomics and size of the horn). I thought the Jupiter was comfortable to play and had a very good low register. I cannot comment on its resistance to denting, because I was very careful with the horn.

[Ace]

I had a good test period with a Jupiter 582 BBb. It was a very good tuba, well-made, and sounded great in all registers. The slides and valves were excellent. Terrific tuba for the money.

Jupiter makes several sizes of tubas. The 582 and its 3/4 cousin 482 are classified as "PRO" level horns, and I believe they come close to deserving that description.

At 70 years of age, the 582 was too big and heavy for me to handle, but the excellent 482 fits my needs perfectly. It has good tone and intonation throughout and is built like a tank. However, IMO the supplied 24AW mouthpiece is not appropriate for this instrument. I opened up my 482 tuba using a Wick 3 mouthpiece.

BTW, it seems to me that some Chinese tuba manufacturers these days are making impressive progress. When Brasswind receives its shipments of Dalyan tubas in July, it will be interesting to hear comments about them, particularly from someone like Roger Lewis. Checking the latest WWBW catalog, I notice the Dalyan four rotor CC (.790" bore; 16.5" bell)with case will sell for about $2,700. Possibly, this will develop into a real price breakthrough in the CC tuba market. TubaNews has a favorable test review of Dalyan tubas.

Lastly, I recently received my new Jupiter 530 valved trombone in C. It is marketed as a "deluxe" trombone, and it lives up to that title. I have played many valve trombones over the years, and none have equalled the quality and sound of this instrument.

So, congratulations to the few Chinese companies that are striving to produce good instruments. Let's hope the underacheiving remainder fall by the wayside. There have been some really bad horns coming from there.

[baridrummer]

I use one for symphonic band, and damn, I'm so grateful every time I play it! It is without a doubt the best used tuba I have ever played. (Except for maybe the C Miraphone (188?) that Ron Caswell once let me play around with.) Despite its large dent in the bottom bow, it's amazingly free-blowing. Its intonation is excellent. Its spit is easy to empty. Because someone before me had destroyed the finish, done a poor job of dent removal in the past, and replaced two of its finger buttons with ill-fitting imitations that resulted in a chronic clicky-clack, I snagged this one for "only" $2600, rather than the $9000 that I see the equivalent model is currently retailing for. So it may be an ugly horn, but I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind the weight of a true 4/4. In comparison, I use a beat-up 186 for home practice, but its intonation is nothing to write home about. Before that I was using a brand-new Mack Brass 582, but in time found its tone as a 3/4 to be too thin for me. Before that I had an Olds 0-99-1 from Dillon's, which was adequately punchy, but had terrible ergonomics that meant that my pinky always strained to reach the 4th valve. I also briefly had a 4v Wessex Eb helicon, which was perfectly free-blowing being only five years old, but shared that 4th valve issue, and also had valve caps with such fine threads that they took forever to put back on (and I was afraid the threads would soon be trashed). I do wish the lead pipe on this 582 were lower to actually reach my mouth without using a tuba stand, but I guess I can't have everything.

In short, I would recommend this model, or the newer JTU1110, for anyone looking for a reasonably-priced BBb concert horn.

[Easy Mac]

Did you note the dates of the posts in this thread?

I nominate this for the greatest necro-post of all time: two decades!

[baridrummer]

I mean, I’m talking about a horn that was probably made in the 80’s, so why not?