Tuba Practice Mute advice?

[spokanetuba]

Trumcor Vs Schlipf practice mutes: Has anyone played both? I have a Miraphone 1291 CC Tuba. Is it worth the extra money for the Schlipf?
Thanks for the help.
Matt

[Tom]

I've played with both.

A correctly sized Schlipf mute is superior in every way to the Trumcor practice mutes, in my opinion.

[tubacrow]

To be honest, if I were to spend that type of money, I would consider buying a Humes & Berg concert mute. It would have uses outside of practice.

[bort]

I had a Schlipf mute for my 1291. It was great, and well worth the money. The only reason I sold it was because I sold the horn!

[ckalaher1]

I purchased a Schlipf mute from Lee Stofer back in March.

It is a fine product, but it is still a practice mute, so response suffers and pitch takes some work to center everything up. It fits my Gronitz PCK quite well.

Lee was great to deal with, and went out of his way to communicate the details of the transaction with me.

[bort]

...pitch takes some work to center everything up.

That's true, but I also felt it was one of the good points of the mute. It really made it clear to me if I was centered on the pitch or not, and how I had to adjust to fix it. Not always as easy to tell in other practice environments.

[ckalaher1]

Bort, I totally agree. I suppose this is one of the positive "side effects" of using a practice mute.