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A good sousaphone can sound and play as well, or better than, many tubas. I had a Conn 20K that I used to use for all of our community band's outdoors concerts and everyone agreed that it had a great sound. It was just a little too much for indoors. I loved the way that it played. I currently use an old King 1250? sousaphone for the occassional outdoor venue, and it plays every bit as well as my King 2341. In my experience a good sousaphone is more open playing than the equivalent tuba, like a Conn 20K vs. a 20J or a King 1250 vs. a King 1240. If I could have only one I would have the tuba, because the sousaphone sound is a little too directional for most indoors playing that I do, but I could see how a good sousaphone could serve as my only horn for community band work.

I'm about to find out which is better, the tuba or the sousa. That's because I bought a good used Besson BBb tuba recently.

In any case, I'm a big sousa fan. Particularly those made of brass. To me, they are very convient for the bass line when marching or outdoors. Yes it can be a load on the left shoulder, but I have no complaints and love my silver Jupiter sousa.

With my Besson tuba, I'll be interested to see how the keys work with them being upwards rather than sideways on the sousa.

To me though, it's a great advantage to learn how to play both the sousa and the regular tuba to get a feel of what they are like.

Hank74

Rubber-Ducko wrote:I havent really got the grip of whats so fantastic about the sousaphone... the sousa's I have played (an new Eb (unknown brand) and a BBb Jupiter (awful brand anyway)... and it just sounds terrible .....
if you could choose only one, would you have the sousa or the tuba?

TSF.... you have not yet had a good sousaphone experience. I play an old Martin 'Mammoth' BBb 3 piston sousa for most outdoor gigs, an old Bell-front 4 piston Eb King for most indoor Dixieland gigs, a Miraphone Eb 4V rotary upright for small indoor gigs, and a 5/4 German 4V rotary for large indoor concerts. In my opinion you will not have a good sousa experience until you get to play some of the great brass sousaphones like an old Martin, a Conn, or a King sousas. The Jupiters sousas or fiberglass/plastic sousas doen't count. To answer your other question... if I could own only one horn, it would be a 4/4 or 5/4 rotary valve BBb upright.

Rubber-Ducko wrote:Ok, thanks for answers, maybe I would try to get my hands in quality sousa next season.

Is there any CC sousas, or are CC just concert tubas?

CC sousas are rare. The ones I've seen are modified EEb sousas.

I played on a fiberglass King sousaphone for several years in high school and used it for a couple of summer bands (All Ohio State Fair Band) and a dixieland group. It was a BBb. I think the sound I was getting with it was comparable to any upright BBb I was playing at the time. I'm sure I'll catch a lot of flack for that statement, but the sousaphone always served me well.

Let me ask you DocPugh, if you have tried out both the fiberglass and brass sousas. If so, would you say there is a comparison between the two?

Hank74

Hank74 wrote:Let me ask you DocPugh, if you have tried out both the fiberglass and brass sousas. If so, would you say there is a comparison between the two?

Hank74

I'm not DocPugh but figured I needed to get in on this one. I've owned many sousas in both fiberglass/plastic and brass. The ONLY benefit of a fiberglass/plastic sousa is that they are lighter in weight and the main branches are very durable. It would take a really great playing plastic sousa to equal a really crummy playing brass sousa.

I believe that Amati makes sousaphones in Eb, F, BBb, and CC. I can't think of anyone else who makes anything other than BBb sousaphones today. I have never played one of their sousaphones, but the Amati tubas I have tried have been unimpressive.

Lew wrote:I believe that Amati makes sousaphones in Eb, F, BBb, and CC. I can't think of anyone else who makes anything other than BBb sousaphones today. I have never played one of their sousaphones, but the Amati tubas I have tried have been unimpressive.

I forgot about those things! I think there is an Amati on the auction now. Hard telling what key it is. The wraps are really strange in terms of conventional American sousas.

Whoops! The one on the auction is actually a Cerveny. Oh well... about the same thing.

where I have made a couple of postings:

viewtopic.php?p=4695&highlight=#4695


As for Lew's posting:

The Amati ASH 262A apparently is convertible CC/BBb instrument:

http://www.amati.cz/english/production/ ... phones.htm

The BBb version looks like this:



Unlike Lew's impression of Amati tubas, I found this sousaphone very remarkable. It was so bad that I will never forget it:

viewtopic.php?p=2565&highlight=#2565


Aside from Amati you also can get Eb sousaphones from Glassl:

http://www.musik-glassl.de/preise.html/sousaphon.html




Klaus