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bort wrote:My understanding (from Dillon) was that particular engraving means that it is handmade. But I guess Mr. Nirschl would know. This must be one of those conveyor belt push utton and out pops a tuba, tubas.
Very cool tuba!
The engraving "Perantucci Mod" on a Nirschl only means that it was sold through Custom Music, nothing else, according to a surprising conversation with Walter at Mid-West 8-10 years ago.
Again, via the Mid-West conversation with Walter, he said that all of his bells and bottom bows were hand hammered but that the next four branches were hand hammered
only on the hand-made models. The valve sections are identical. In a long side-by-side comparison, the hand-made horn was much lighter, I would guess at least five pounds. It was NOT a measured difference, just a comparison when the Dallas Winds used his tubas during our Midwest performance. I preferred the non-handmade horn of the two but the horn I played in my regular work was not hand-made. I don't remember any comments on the leadpipes. My receiver accepted American mouthpieces very well.
I've experienced some variation in Mr. Nirschl's answers over the years. He seems like he is just not overly concerned with the details sometimes.
The most surprising thing was that he told me was that, at first, he expected he would sell 50 or 60 of the Nirschl-Yorks but had sold 160 as of that conversation. There are over a hundred Yorkbrunners and there must be hundreds of Meinl 6/4 tubas. How many people in the world need a 6/4 horn???
As a point of difference with Bloke, I never would have described a Nirschl sound as "poofy." They were designed "after" the 1930's 4/4 York tubas but the sound was a bit darker. Terminology is hard to refine when describing sound. I think a Conn 2X-J is "poofy."
I have found the 4/4 Nirschl's to be very good horns. I played one professionally for over 10 years but I tested another half dozen during that time. The differences between horns are best described as characteristic preferences. I thought they all had solid scales, pitch and response. Nirschl's are hard to beat, it just depends on what you are looking for.
