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roweenie wrote:

Interestingly, (at least in the OP's example) only the MTS has these magical qualities. From where I stand, all of the valve tuning slides are of the mundane "little-big-little-big old system" variety.

This all makes me wonder if the whole Columbia Band Instrument range wasn't "designed" and promoted by someone in Great Britain and then sourced from the Ming Dynasty.

Oh yeah, and doesn't the appeal to a vision of utmost quality embodied in the final "All former prices are hereby cancelled." tag buoy the above suspicion?

bigtubby wrote:Interestingly, (at least in the OP's example) only the MTS has these magical qualities. From where I stand, all of the valve tuning slides are of the mundane "little-big-little-big old system" variety.

Indeed, as advertised -

seller wrote:Harry Jay's "claim to fame" was what he patented as the "reverse leadpipe". Basically, one of the Main tuning slide inner legs comes out from the body of the horn rather than both legs on the slide being inner legs.

"All former prices are hereby cancelled" seems clearly implicit in the publication of a subsequent price list, but those were different days, maybe it wasn't so obvious.

Donn wrote:

bigtubby wrote:Interestingly, (at least in the OP's example) only the MTS has these magical qualities. From where I stand, all of the valve tuning slides are of the mundane "little-big-little-big old system" variety.

Indeed, as advertised -

seller wrote:Harry Jay's "claim to fame" was what he patented as the "reverse leadpipe". Basically, one of the Main tuning slide inner legs comes out from the body of the horn rather than both legs on the slide being inner legs.

"All former prices are hereby cancelled" seems clearly implicit in the publication of a subsequent price list, but those were different days, maybe it wasn't so obvious.

FWIW, I was responding to the hyperbole embodied in the advert. Hyperbole the likes of which seem to hold sway even today.

This hyperbole implies that a "system" of tuning slides lacking in "air pockets" makes the Columbia instruments superior. While it is possible to (at least approximately, if you don't understand this caveat please ask me) to implement the system implied by this advertising tripe - a properly graduated bore through the valve block with each valve exiting into an "ever increasing" next valve through a similarly increasing tuning slide, it would be exceedingly cost prohibitive and would produce negligible cost/benefit ratios.

While I hope that this doesn't flag me as an incontrovertible pedant, "little-big-little-big" is inaccurate in relation to the provided illustrations which demonstrate a "little-big-little" scheme of "air pockets" (which seem to never have hindered King, Cerveny, Miraphone, Gronitz, MW, etc., etc.).

I'm sorry, the evening's events seem to have left me a little too fuzzy to follow all the littles and bigs in your complaint, but for me, it's moderately appealing when applied as it was here, in the leadpipe. We put up with simple cylindrical valve tubing, as there's no real alternative, but no one loves to see a purely cylindrical leadpipe -as must be the case when a tuning slide is introduced there. The simple answer would of course be to do as King, Cerveny, Miraphone etc. have all done and have the tuning slide after the valves. And I'm no acoustician, to know if in the end it makes any predictable difference. But in days of old, the tuning slide before the valves seems to have been much more common, and here someone tried to make it slightly more conical. I guess if it had really worked, there'd have been more of them, but anyway it's a nice try.

Among graduated bore ideas, I'd be more interested in whether a larger diameter 4th valve really helps, since it's a feature I think we're more likely to encounter in modern tubas.