First, unfortunately, the bell was crushed during shipping. Working through that now, but will have it fixed (properly) and move on from it. It's frustrating and it's major damage, but could have been worse.
Now onto the fun stuff, with the caveat that the bell is in bad shape:
Initial impression is that this tuba is just what I was looking for, something similar to but slightly bigger than a Mirafone 188. In fact, the two tubas are very similar to each other, more so than I had expected. The Rudy is just a little bit bigger though, and I like the sound a little more.
The first note I played I thought "wow, I still sound like me." No matter what tuba you play, to some level you still sound like yourself. Not a bad thing, just surprising sometimes. Other thoughts after a few hours on it:
* Great sound -- very big, very dark, and very pleasing
* Great intonation -- I can even play the E and Eb in the staff as 0 and 2. I guess the really high partials get a little off, but I didn't pull out my tuner, and the current state of the bell isn't going to make that entirely accurate either.
* Easy to play -- loud or soft, it does exactly what you tell it to do. And if you step on the gas, it will GO. Very open and free blowing, and doesn't back up. So, no excuses -- anything wrong with the output is on me. I like that.
* Valve linkages are noisy (top play), but that was expected and disclosed to me by the seller.
* Ergonomically, it's VERY comfortable, and the fifth valve is EXACTLY where my thumb expects it to be.
* Construction/build quality is exceptional. This tuba is 20--30 years old(?), I can only imagine how great it looked new.
* Heavy -- for a handmade tuba, I thought it would be lighter. Not a problem, just surprised a bit by that.
* Switching back to a flat whole step fifth valve is screwing with my mind. Might want to get a minor third slide built for me at some point in life.
Also found it interesting that the engraving on the bell is actually a stamp, not engraving (you can see it "pushed through" to the inside of the bell). Not sure that's uncommon, but I thought it was interesting.
And, it's cool that all of the parts (valves, caps, rotors, etc...) all have a "2" stamped onto them, as well as some other marking on the tuba from the assembly line. I'm assuming that with all of the hands-on work involved at the factory, this is to keep it straight which parts go with which tubas.
Overall, it's definitely a keeper, but it needs some work both to address the damage and to address some of the other known issues. What surprises me the most is that even in it's injured state, it is STILL a nice playing tuba that plays and sounds very nice. If I like it this much now, I'm excited to know that it will only get better from here!
Photos to come later today.
Congrats!
