Elkhart era Conn model 8D double horn

[Tabor]

Had a band director friend who bought their kid a $50 8D at a garage sale. The sellers of the 8D bought their kid a Jupiter single. (barf) The 8D kid was teased by the Jupiter kid because it wasn't shiny. Guess which one went to college in music. Guess which one had a horn professor remark that their horn was especially good.



we had a good laugh about that.

[Ace]

8D's (with very large bell throats aka "Kruspe"-style) are the horn equivalent of "6/4" tubas.

There are still plenty of people who play them, but the demand is down, somewhat, as (with horn players being farther down the road in trends that tuba players) the trend, now, is "4/4" "Geyer"-style (smaller bell throat) horns.

Just as with 4/4 tubas, if a horn player can't make a pretty buzz, Geyer-style horns don't cloak a faulty buzz very well.

Joe, I had never really thought about the sizes of bell throats with respect to the Kruspe and Geyer style horns. Rather, I always thought about the two different "wraps" relative to the placement of the fourth rotor valve. Thanks for the information.

Good discussion at this site: http://hornreviews.com/kruspe-geyer-hor ... ifference/" target="_blank

By the way, of the several French horns I have owned and used in the past, I always migrated to the Geyer configuration, feeling that they were more free-blowing. YMMV

Ace

[iiipopes]

Because they needed someone in the section of the small college I attended, I played French horn for one semester. The college had several of the Olds nickel-silver horns bloke describes, and I played one of them. Good horn, but I was not destined to be a horn player. After one semester I turned it in and "ran screaming" back to the tuba trenches.