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Does the length of piston valve throw vary much by brand? Are other brands shorter, longer, or about the same as the B&S/MW "big valves"? (Talking about modern production tubas here, nothing experimental or things like short action sousaphone valves.)

I realize that all B&S and MW tubas use the same pistons, so no difference there. I remember the Miraphone 129x have a relatively short action to them. Curious about other brands.

I realize the differences probably aren't dramatic across manufacturers, but have been wondering about it as I get acclimated to playing a piston valve tuba again. The difference in "feel" from rotors to pistons is significant; about half the time I don't notice it, and the other half the time I think "this is a lot more work for my hands than rotors." Maybe other factors, like the "bigness" of the "big valves" affecting me?

bort wrote:Does the length of piston valve throw vary much by brand? Are other brands shorter, longer, or about the same as the B&S/MW "big valves"? (Talking about modern production tubas here, nothing experimental or things like short action sousaphone valves.)

I realize that all B&S and MW tubas use the same pistons, so no difference there. I remember the Miraphone 129x have a relatively short action to them. Curious about other brands.

As I understand it, piston travel depends largely on bore size, as the wider the passage is through the piston, the longer it takes it to travel to its destination.

Some manufacturers over the years have compensated for this by "compressing" the space in the passage, creating a "bump", because the shortened travel distance causes the different ports to interfere with each other.

A good visual example of this is the Grand Rapids York tuba piston, in .750 bore. Earlier examples have virtually full-diameter passages through the piston, but had pretty long throws. Later on (late 1920s - I seem to remember seeing an old advertisement about it somewhere) they jumped on the Conn/Holton "short action" bandwagon by redesigning their pistons to have "bumps" in them (and yes, the shorter piston is genuine "Grand Rapids" York, not B & M "German made" Yorkmaster).



They are both .750 bore, but one is much shorter than the other (FWIW, I perceive no noticeable difference in response between the two different variants).

I realize the differences probably aren't dramatic across manufacturers, but have been wondering about it as I get acclimated to playing a piston valve tuba again. The difference in "feel" from rotors to pistons is significant; about half the time I don't notice it, and the other half the time I think "this is a lot more work for my hands than rotors." Maybe other factors, like the "bigness" of the "big valves" affecting me?

Funny, I've always felt the opposite, in that I've always preferred pistons over rotaries - to me, I like the "directness" of feeling with pistons, where rotaries always struck me as somewhat "Rube Goldberg-ish"....to each, his own.

Thanks guys, that is great information -- definitely didn't have a full understanding of that before, and certainly didn't think about how close together the ports are. Still feels like I'm doing more work with pistons than I did with rotors. Maybe it's all the same, though!

My big 6/4 Meinl-Weston I sold a few years back had Yamaha tuba valve springs (might have been euph), blokewashers, and blokebuttons (lighter). They were also really clean.

They worked great. Easy-smeasy.

Well, if blokebuttons were still available...

And to be clear, the valves are clean, oiled, and have the euph (now tuba) Yamaha springs. It works great and I like a lot of things about the pistons... but for my hand, it's different muscles and different motions, and until those muscles are developed more... just seems like more "work." The stock Rotax rotors were a lot of work too. Brand new Miraphone rotary valves are barely any work, and the 3B B&S valves on my old Neptune were like a toy.

Thanks for the input and help. You all are probably thinking "There goes bort... Oh bitch, bitch, bitch..."

You might try Yamaha euphonium springs (yeah really) and post a "wanted" ad for bloke buttons. The weight reduction is not BS. My set is not for sale.

I actually use the euph springs on my piston Rudolf Meinl CC tuba (though the valves on that tuba are a bit smaller).

A couple of things...

- The 'land' between ports is the only vertical seal and the smaller it is, the less wear the valve will tolerate before it leaks.
- The Yamaha spring that seems to work the best for me has the last digits of 41070.

bloke wrote:A long-throw = easier to subtly imitate a vocal portamento.
I like this feature, and use it sometimes. Though I never studied with Arnold Jacobs, reportedly its an old AJ trick. It's something we did when we were kids and scolded against by our studio teachers, ~yet~ if it is done while ~maintaining~ the energy of the buzz and the air, it's quite effective. 
It's more difficult to achieve with a finger-lever-connected-to-an-action-arm-connected-to-a-rotor-stem, ironically due to the mechanical advantage offered by rotor/lever systems.

^^^^^^this^^^^^^