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I just got back into playing the tuba a couple of years ago at age 50 and it's been fun to get back and learn more about the music culture. Probably like many of you, I love looking at tubas/tuba manufacturers and learning more about the music industry.
As someone who is also into sports and does sports medicine, I was thinking about some of the sponsored artists for many of the tuba manufacturers. In many sports, it's common knowledge that the equipment the athletes are selling may not be what they really use. Even though it's less common, in cycling there are plenty of examples of cyclists on sponsored equipment that isn't available to the public (e.g. Greg Lemond never road a Huffy and even for a while Lance Armstrong was riding a Litespeed instead of a Trek). In tennis, while I can buy the racquet that Roger Federer endorses, most in the know tennis buffs will tell you it's not the model he actually plays with (I once got my hand on some pro racquets which was pretty interesting).

It seems like that would be a lot harder to do within the tuba world given the difficulties of making a tuba but then again, anthing is possible. I'm particularly wondering about this for musicians sponsored by companies where the instruments are made in Chinese factories. I also completely realize that professional musicians can make a student horn sound WAY better than I would sound on a pro- horn.

I understand the Holton "Leonard Falcone" model baritone didn't meet Mr. Falcone's standards, so he never endorsed or played it.

This is a question you see a LOT with regards to Rock guitarists, who make a LOT of money on their endorsement deals, but a lot carries over. It also depends on the artist, what kind of deal they arrived at, etc.

A lot of the buzz in the trombone world is always surrounding Joe Alessi, who is pretty much the biggest name in trombone endorsement, ever. Edwards trombone were all "custom" modular instruments before they did their first real "signature series" instruments since the Canadian Brass days. While Alessi worked in the development, trombone gearhead spotters would always notice things like he had a removable leadpipe, which the signature model didn't, and then a straight version without a valve appeared, etc. Now of course he's with Shires, and I don't doubt that the horns he plays may be a bit different.

However, that's the trombone world, and relatively speaking, trombones are far cheaper than tubas. For the tubas, especially ones made overseas, I would say yes, they are the same, but they definitely get the "good ones". They may put their best people on that particular tuba, or they may go through a bunch of tubas to see which one they like best.

That's pretty much how it used to be, with the players who would get to go to the factory and try out a whole bunch of horns and pick out the one they liked the best.

What tbonesullivan said.
Wherever You go to buy a tuba, You´ll pick the best horns out of a batch.
Chances are that prominent players will plan their visit to a shop / a manufacturer way ahead of time, having issued a good idea of what they´re Looking for in a horn.
So if the Berlin Philharmonic frenchhorn section drops by, Alexander´s will make sure Sarah and her colleagues will find a variety of Horns to choose from. These occasions won´t happen by accident, which can be observed on Youtube.

But as far as I know, all options for customization will be available to everybody willing to put the dough on the table.
My Willson has some features their regular products don´t, and I´m just some no-name hobbyist.

Don't confuse marketing with making a living.
Manufacturers are mostly concerned with selling horns.
Business arrangements are made with that in mind.
Most hobbyists could not even begin to use what full-time pros play, and vice versa.

For a pro that usually means a big bore, big mouthpiece, great (not just good) sound and some way to get wide slots. Whatever horn they are using is usually tweaked and modified to let them accomplish this with the greatest degree of ease. These are just tools, and if the tool does not accomplish the task you change it.

The average player looks for something smaller so that endurance is not a problem and is what they would consider needs the least attention so that they can concentrate on the music.

Fortunately, with the tuba a great deal of the fine-tuning can be done with the player and mouthpiece because it is no trivial task to modify the tuba itself in a significant way!

Phil Smith said he played "off the shelf Bachs.''

For a player of his stature I assume he was presented with a "shelf" that had as many trumpets as he had the time and patience to try out and he choose the one he liked.

I think this is pretty common practice among professionals.

Theoretically, if you were there a day earlier and picked out the right horn, it could have belonged to you!

Hup

Nothing.

Ulli wrote:Yes, such as F- tuba Harmonia 654-6 or Bb- tuba Opera 883-5, both professional instruments, hand-crafted by Cerveny, both with adjustable Remonteur valve springs.

I don't understand this post. Could you please explain?

Hup

Hup, I am not a native speaker. May be, it comes to problems with understanding and translations. Please forget it. I withdraw from tubenet.
Ulli