Jinbao, a.k.a. "those Asian horns"

[UDELBR]

- others are very appreciative of the posts.

I for one greatly appreciate all the pictures & info Jonathan's been giving us, and certainly don't consider what he's doing a "hard sell". It's all interesting stuff we'd surely not get to see otherwise.

[123go]

These horns are NOT going away. People are excited about them and that is why they are posting about them. Most of the people talking about them have no business interest, though a few of them are distributors. The rest of us want to hear from the distributors, especially about things like factory tours because we are excited about these horns. It's a good thing they post on this forum instead of the sponsors area, otherwise we wouldn't see their posts (which is probably your goal, elephant). The fact is these horns play very well, are very affordable, and are already in the hands of pros and students in top programs. You can call them "second rate" or "knock-off" or "clone" all you want. They are not going away and you are not going to get people to stop talking about them.

As potential buyers and players:

We don't care about whether you can get parts easily. Neither I nor anyone I know has ever bought or had a repairman provide a replacement part for a tuba aside from the occasional Yamaha valve guide, spring, felt, etc. Whether parts are easily available or not, we just don't care. Having never ordered one in thirty years, I'll take my chances.

We don't care about your opinion of what the Chinese political system used to be, or your misguided ideas about what it currently is. This has nothing to do with tubas.

We don't care what you think of any particular company's quality control. We'll decide for ourselves when we play the horns and when we hear others playing the horns.

We don't care what is on the bell. This has no effect on how you sound when you play it, and there is nothing dishonest or misleading about it at all.

You wanna know who is ruining tubenet elephant? It is NOT the people who are excited about tubas and want to tell others about it! Those are exactly the people who should be posting!

[bisontuba]

Friends-

I said I would not post on this thread again, but I will make an exception just this once. Folks, be VERY, VERY careful in writing and making false accusations that I have a vested interest in any Asian instruments and/or company.

Yes, I have written reviews--both positive AND negative--about the Chinese tubas. And as I ALWAYS say, and will say again, go TRY OUT instruments.

I think everyone needs to go out and enjoy the Summer...and chill out....

Have a terrific week-
mark

[Dan Schultz]

.....
As potential buyers and players:

We don't care about whether you can get parts easily. Neither I nor anyone I know has ever bought or had a repairman provide a replacement part for a tuba aside from the occasional Yamaha valve guide, spring, felt, etc. Whether parts are easily available or not, we just don't care. Having never ordered one in thirty years, I'll take my chances.

We don't care about your opinion of what the Chinese political system used to be, or your misguided ideas about what it currently is. This has nothing to do with tubas.

We don't care what you think of any particular company's quality control. We'll decide for ourselves when we play the horns and when we hear others playing the horns.

We don't care what is on the bell. This has no effect on how you sound when you play it, and there is nothing dishonest or misleading about it at all.....

When you say WE ... you certainly aren't speaking for ME.

I agree that the imports are here to stay.... and their competition will make for better horns and better prices. However... of all of the 'dealers' who have sprung up in the last few months, only a couple will survive.

There are going to be lots of 'parts horns' out there in a few short years.... if even the parts are worth re-using. I am sorry to say that even a reasonable level of quality has yet to be achieved. Perhaps a descent value to the dollar. But... certainly not something that you will be playing in ten or twenty years.

I just had a young girl and her mother in the shop Saturday. It's sad to have to explain why the Bestler flute they just purchased is not worth the guarantee that came with it.

Be careful of who you buy from. The ability to purchase tubas three at a time at wholesale cost does not constitute a reliable dealer. Make sure they can service what they sell. I'm not trying to be mean to anyone... just pointing out that an unplayable horn is worth nothing regardless of what you payed for it.

[imperialbari]

You wanna know who is ruining tubenet elephant? It is NOT the people who are excited about tubas and want to tell others about it! Those are exactly the people who should be posting!

Hallelujah! Wonderful expertise from an experienced longtime member of TubeNet!:

123go.jpg

Shame on all suspecting a second identity for a regular poster not wanting his motives being known.

We have at least two TN repairman members having serviced school districts for a living, one more than the other. Are they ruining TN by telling about their experiences?

I obviously am interested in the opportunities for cheaper instruments coming out of China, but I am very doubtful about voting for them by means of my own money.

Klaus

[Wyvern]

Make sure they can service what they sell.

Dan, Not everyone selling tubas (or any other musical instruments) are repair shops. That is a connected, but separate area of business. For myself, I make no claim to be repair man, but have agreed technical after sales support with my good friend Mark Carter at Mr.Tuba as I know there will be occasional issues with the tubas I sell that I cannot address.

[Dan Schultz]

Make sure they can service what they sell.

Dan, Not everyone selling tubas (or any other musical instruments) are repair shops. That is a connected, but separate area of business. For myself, I make no claim to be repair man, but have agreed technical after sales support with my good friend Mark Carter at Mr.Tuba as I know there will be occasional issues with the tubas I sell that I cannot address.

Jonathan... I wasn't directing my comment toward anyone in particular. Just pointing out that I am of the opinion that service and parts availability should be considered when purchasing most anything. Doesn't matter if it's tubas or automobiles.

You certainly can't go wrong with Mark Carter in your corner!

[123go]

Yes, Klaus, quite obviously an "undercover" i.d.

Sometimes, when people have "undercover" (second or third) i.d.'s, it is because there are issues with their primary i.d.

I'm sure that Sean Chisham or Wayne Wiley can (from isp of the posts) quickly identify the account's owner. There are
a few other people who have managed to set up second accounts and use them (just as this one is) for troll-based
or agenda-based posting.

When they become angry though, they nearly always show their rear ends. It then becomes obvious that they are using a secondary id. Particularly frustrating to them is when they start a thread to try to sway opinion, and someone else (later in the thread) will change the subject - thus derailing their agendae.

...By the way, 123go, my name is Joe Sellmansberger, and I live near Memphis. What is your name, and where do you live?

Oh please..... here come the personal attacks. What a pathetic way to try to participate in a debate. Are you actually saying that if someone doesn't use their real name they are trying to keep secrets "bloke"? Are you saying the same thing about the vast majority of users on this forum? Even Sean? REALLY?

I have absolutely nothing to hide. My name is Christopher Lair and I currently live near Springfield, MO for those of you whom I haven't already told, and I have already told several. My username is no secret. I stand firmly and confidently behind everything I have posted. Think you're calling me out? Think again.

I assure you I am not angry. I also want you and Wade to know that I have no personal issue with you whatsoever. You're all great people! But I am questioning labels that sound vaguely racist to me. I also feel compelled to chime in when I see good people who I consider to also be my friends attacked by those few bullies on this forum who seem to forever be involved in one personal confrontation or another.

[MartyNeilan]

my name is Joe Sellmansberger, and I live near Memphis. What is your name, and where do you live?

Who is your daddy and what does he do?

[tubaforce]

Hi!
I don't think anyone is making attacks based on race! Generalizations pointed at a Nation, sure! But I'd like to think we're over differences in appearance in 2011! Though I do wonder how(SOME) folks in Arizona are dealing with white-skinned Mexican-Americans, and US born Puerto Ricans...! Can't we all just get along?
Al

[Donn]

But I am questioning labels that sound vaguely racist to me.

You ought to question more. Have you thought about the names that the importers choose to market these instruments? Selman, Schiller, Wessex ... what's going on there? They are made by, pardon me, the Chinese, so whose Northern European names are these? These are not "labels that sound vaguely racist", they're clearly and stridently racist: when it comes to the bottom line, importers believe their instrument will sell better with a European name.

[cjk]

[123go]

But I am questioning labels that sound vaguely racist to me.

You ought to question more. Have you thought about the names that the importers choose to market these instruments? Selman, Schiller, Wessex ... what's going on there? They are made by, pardon me, the Chinese, so whose Northern European names are these? These are not "labels that sound vaguely racist", they're clearly and stridently racist: when it comes to the bottom line, importers believe their instrument will sell better with a European name.

Sure. I certainly see your point here. This practice has been defended by some as a way of dealing with discrimination by consumers who might not want to buy instruments from China, and from that perspective it does seem dishonest. Frankly I'm still not sure how I feel about all those distributor names on the bells because some of the distributors seem to be motivated differently. There are some doing this whom I know to be very honest people, and there are others...well.... Apparently some changes may have come from this thread in that some of the distributors are going to stop doing that. Personally I still don't care what's on the bell when I'm looking at a horn to buy, whether it's a well-know brand, a lesser known brand, or a Frankentuba. All I really want to know is how it plays.

[Wyvern]

Have you thought about the names that the importers choose to market these instruments? Selman, Schiller, Wessex ... what's going on there?

Please do not try to link me with that despicable deception Schiller claiming they are from Frankfort, German. If you look at my website you will see the source of all tubas I sell clearly stated. As I have said before the main reason to put on my company name is to create a brand, particularly in the brass band world where no-one would ever have heard of JinBao and most likely would not buy with that foreign sounding name they can't pronounce on the bell. And if I can only brand with the manufacture, what am I going to have on the compensated BBb? I don't even know the name of the company actually making, only the Chinese distributors - so if I do not have engraved with my company name, it will just be that of a Chinese distributor, not manufacturer. The Chinese brass instrument business is very complicated and does not work on the same business model as that in Europe.

[Lingon]

...Have you thought about the names that the importers choose to market these instruments? Selman, Schiller, Wessex ... what's going on there? They are made by, pardon me, the Chinese, so whose Northern European names are these? These are not "labels that sound vaguely racist", they're clearly and strident ly racist: when it comes to the bottom line, importers believe their instrument will sell better with a European name.

Hmm, an interesting coincidence is the company, located in the US, that market their instruments, including a couple of tuba models, from the far east as Berkeley. As far as I know the people that runs the company are from China and even sells Chinese traditional instruments. So even in the US, run by real asians. Is that a racist company or what do you think? I am sorry if I misinterpret some of the comments, becuase my native language is not english. But OTOH the language of music is universal.
I do not think that a certain name can be rascist, however some behaviours can be racistic?
Ah well somewhat back on topic, those Jinbao, a.k.a. asian, horns I use almost daily are fine instruments. Those Holtons and a couple of other american and european made instruments that I also use are too. The Holtons can be found with for excample Vox and Vito stamps, but they works fine irrepective of that. And the duds are also bad irrespective of brand. All in all, I prefer good instruments with the real names, irrespective of origin, but can not think that other names on the instruments are racistic, at least as long as you do not hide the origin with stuff like German engineered to cheat people to think that it is something other than it is. But as said be proud and show both the real names and the origin. Then let everything manifest itself because of the quality, the playability and durability compared to the price in the form of, again a popular american expression, 'most bang for the buck'. As Jonathan pointed out and what I have written earlier asian, eurpoean and, I think, also american, which partly is residues from an older european culture that has developed in another direction, culture and behaviour differs, so processes and methods used in one place does not necessarily works in another place. Only the future will know what happened...

[Donn]

Hmm, an interesting coincidence is the company, located in the US, that market their instruments, including a couple of tuba models, from the far east as Berkeley. As far as I know the people that runs the company are from China and even sells Chinese traditional instruments. So even in the US, run by real asians. Is that a racist company or what do you think?

Sure!

I started writing this post to discard the pretense and assure you that all this "racist" stuff is just a game, and we should be a little ashamed of playing that game in light of the very real and destructive racism that still goes on around us. But as I give it some thought, I suppose there is a racist element to this specific issue.

Racism is directed at people, not countries. If we used old fashioned names like "Communist China", well, the older or more well schooled among us will be reminded that there's a "Nationalist China", where the Chinese people in question are racially identical, and if we infer disapproval of the former, it seems to imply approval of the latter. Racially speaking, a wash. But when we start talking about names we can't pronounce, that does cut a little closer to the skin.

If the folks who thought of selling these instruments as "Berkeley" are Chinese themselves, that doesn't mean a thing - there's no racist like the self-racist.

You could excuse these people as victims of their market's racism, inasmuch as they evidently really would pay an economic price if they didn't cater to their market's possibly racist perception that people with pronounceable names are apt to make better tubas, but it looks like they're playing along and reinforcing it.

You could argue that the overall phenomenon really isn't racist, but just national/political - that people know what China is about, and they have a aversion to conspicuously Chinese goods because they're horrified by the things they've read and don't care to support that country in any way, or simply because they're acquainted with decades of shoddy, fraudulent, even dangerous merchandise from that country, and we don't need to consider the technical possibility that something with a Chinese name may come from somewhere else than mainland China. (After all, it's not like these people who think Berkeley instruments might be of western origin are really fully engaging their brains on this matter.) But maybe that's racist too. I mean, given that it's all historically true, still, Tienanmen was decades ago, and today no doubt the rivers run clear and sweet, the air is clear, people are happy and just naturally industrious, Tibetans are secretly proud to be a part of the new China, etc. And every new tuba that comes out is better than the one before, just ask ... oops, well, someone who always seems to be getting a new Chinese tuba. Maybe we're racist because we ... don't keep giving China a chance, after each new evidence that it doesn't deserve it.

[tubaguy9]

We don't care about whether you can get parts easily. Neither I nor anyone I know has ever bought or had a repairman provide a replacement part for a tuba aside from the occasional Yamaha valve guide, spring, felt, etc. Whether parts are easily available or not, we just don't care. Having never ordered one in thirty years, I'll take my chances.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but this is where I think you actually do care about this...
If something did happen to this horn that you paid let's say, $2,000 for, and something happened while you were playing/putting horn away, whatever, sometimes generic parts don't work quite right. So, when that valve guide does end up breaking, or causing something to happen, you don't care that it can't be replaced, and that you can no longer use this horn?
This is just some food for thought, and fuel for the debate...

[imperialbari]

I think I might end up as a grumpy old man when I get old...

With the likes of 123no-go thinking they know what is good for TubeNet your grumpiness is well justified.

Klaus

[UTSAtuba]

I thought it was Huashen (sp?) that's been around for 40 years...

[Dan Schultz]

..... Shakespeare may have said 'What's in a name?' However, in a free market, the consumers may be the most discriminating of all. And the customer is always right, right?

I think you are correct. 'Stigma' is the right word. Not racism.

Perhaps after WWII, it would not have been good business for a German or Japanese company to market automobiles in the US with names like 'Fokker', or 'Zero', either. I couldn't care less. But... my father sure as heck would have!