Does anybody have hands-on, or even better mouth-on, experience with the Jupiter 482 and the Weril J680. I’m considering buying one of those. I’m going to play them both I buy, but it doesn’t have to be an unbiased experience, so please … make me biased .
Back in my BBb days I tried them both. The Jupiter had far superior valves--It had been tweaked by Matt at Dillon's! But it sounded like a Jupiter--not my favorite tuba sound. The Weril sounded better, but had some intonation issues. If you can try these two tubas in the same room, it will make the comparison more valid. Take another musician with you even if he or she is not a tubist. And by all means take a tuner with you. Good Luck!
P.S. If you could afford the Yamaha YBB-621, you'd have a far better tuba.
Miraphone 188
Parke Ofenloch
Continental Divide Tuba Society
I have not tried the Weril, but I owned a Jupiter 482 BBb for about a year. Its size seemed somewhere between a 3/4 and 4/4. Construction and fit and finish were excellent. Pistons were really smooth and fast. Case was nice and sturdy. I thought the intonation was very good. The horn's tone quality was more than decent, and it sounded best with my Wick 3L. The mouthpiece supplied by the factory seemed to me to be too small to maximize the horn's potential for dynamics and tone color. Best of all was the comparatively low price. The Jupiter 482 is a LOT of horn for the money.
I had to wait a year and check the sites everyday untill Dillon's finally got a YBB-621 in. I bought it for 3500. If you are patient it will happen. There is one for sale now for that price but it is in UK. Shipping is a bunch. You will be glad you waited if a small front action piston horn is what you want.
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