the elephant wrote:This is very irritating to read if you have ever had to work full time in a shop that does major tuba work on a regular basis. The answer is that IT MATTERS. Maybe not to you, but it matters to those who need the parts, for whatever reason, whether you get that others need them or not. YOU don't have to buy them. *I* do. Many others will need them from time to time, and having to wait for four months to get something tends to kill business. They need to be available right away, so that you can order them and expect them to be delivered within about two weeks, which is acceptable.PMeuph wrote:Honest reply:
How often have you had to buy replacement parts for any horn?
Some makers keep most stuff in stock at all times. Some (ahem - Conn-Selmer, I'm talking to you, here) let stock run out completely and then make a new batch when they "get around to it".
Yeah, I know: replenishment is part of a system and stuff has to be done in some sort of order, and that has to do with the machinery being available and the people having time to do the setup work to make parts, so they tend to make them in huge batches. I, like you, I am complaining. This is to show that this issue of parts is not one for the horn owner, it is for the shops who service these horns.
I was pretty candid in my reply that I was talking out of my ***, and I make no apologies for it as this is Tubenet. I still stand by my rhetorical question.
After all: How much should availability of replacement parts be factored in to the decision of buying a horn?
I think it would be a question that should be answered after you have judged a horn on it timbre(s)/tone(s), it's tuning, it's ease of playing, the quality of the valves/slides, the quality of the finish, the feel, how appropriate the horn is for your application, the price. (and maybe several others I'm forgetting)
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Caveat to my first answer: I do know that mouth pipes rot, valves are dropped or pitted too far gone to be salvaged, or that it's cheaper to buy a second valve trumpet slide crook than it is to fix one that is FUBARed. No, I don't have any full time experience with this in a shop and I don't have the pressure of tons of bands needing stuff yesterday, so I see why it could be a frustrating experience for you, Pachy.
That said, if you had to pick between two instruments that you felt were equal, how much would replacement parts factor into your decision. How much money would that be worth in Dollars?