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Joe Sellmansberger made those John Packer CC valve clusters available, and recently posted that one had been ordered and was being delivered. That was me. I was deciding between this cluster which was pricy for me at $1800 plus shipping, and another cluster from a high-end manufacturer in Europe that would have cost a few dollars less, but did not include a 5th valve. Since this one included a 5th valve, and the linkage, and Joe says that JP makes good stuff, I decided to give it a try, and since I am the "early adopter" of this cluster, I thought I'd post an initial review of the product.


First impressions: The cluster is beautiful and shiny and smooth to the touch. It has that vertical CSO York/Nirschl/Meinl type visual layout, It was buffed and cleaned off well. At first, I thought that it was lacquered, because it was so smooth and shiny, but it was just buffed well (washing it with some dish soap gave that away). The rotor cap has an engraving on it, which is neat. The rotor and linkage feels pretty solid and it is quiet.

The gold brass and nickel silver seems nice. The slides are pretty long and all slide well. The slides have all the metal and are not lapped in for the folks who want to move their slide like a trombone, but they are lined up and that is not hard to address.

The valves, likewise, are very tight. Extreme pop. Venting might be a good idea. They are as tight as anything I've come across. The ports are very open. There are some small bumps, but not much.

One thing that is different about this cluster and many that I have seen is that the bends do not appear to be ovalized at all. Many Chinese, (and some American) products have oval bends, but these look nice and round.

I will update this post as time goes on, and especially after I have the cluster mounted to a tuba and can try it out for a while.

Pics?

Ok ok. This has a couple days worth of fingerprints on it and some water spots from when I washed it. (It didn't seem gunky or anything, I just wanted to wash out any manufacturing stuff that might still be in there). I pulled the slides out in one of the photos so you can see how long these nickel silver inner slides are, and have a shot of the rotor cap engraving.

Dumb question(s)...

Looking at your third photo, it appears there are a couple of "ghost marks" (very bottom of the third photo on the nickel part) from having braces soldered on or from the valve cluster having been mounted to a tuba at one time.

Did it come that way? If so, is there any evidence that this valve cluster was actually removed from an assembled tuba?

Yes, there are some solder footprints. There is also a remnant of solder in the end of the main tuning slide. I think it may have indeed been mounted to a tuba, or made in a jig with some other bracing attached that was then removed.

Those are some looong slides! I can't wait to see what it goes on! Someone could have put a set like this on that beat-up, three-valve Holton that was on ebay for so long....

Tubajug wrote:Those are some looong slides! I can't wait to see what it goes on! Someone could have put a set like this on that beat-up, three-valve Holton that was on ebay for so long....

It will go on a very unique 5/4...hope the bugle is good. It is good looking. If it doesn't play well, it will go on something else.

I have a few different possibilities. This one is a mashup of stuff. Pretty, but I don't think I am going with this. It might make an interesting BBb, though.

I had pulled them out to check for bell clearance and pushed them back in part way.

Update:

(a playable mock up using this cluster. Needs most of the bracing, cleaning up etc. Plays in CC. The cluster is held on right now with three braces.

Here is the update:

The tuba plays really well, and looks beautiful. I'm very happy with these valves. I did have to modify the angle of the main slide to make it fit with this wrap, and took a little off the top of the 4th run, and ran it to the bottom to get the proportions just right for this body (and added a pull ring for the heck of it), but it is a killer horn now. Thanks for selling these clusters, Joe!

Fabulous horn Tabor!

Are there supposed to be pearls in the valve buttons? The recessed buttons look...different...I guess I'm just used to smooth, flat buttons. Still a great looking horn!

Yes, normally there is something on the valves, but this did not ship with anything there. I cut out some leather discs that substitute for pearls for now, but am thinking about various materials that could go there.