Piston v. Rotatry: a Musical difference?

[Chuck(G)]

You know, there was a very nice study by IWK in Austria about the characteristics of slurs using rotary and piston valves:

http://iwk.mdw.ac.at/Forschung/english/ ... valves.htm

Basically, it boils down to: "valves don't matter much; only the location of the valves in the bugle". Tubas generally place rotary valves later in the bugle (longer leadpipe) than piston. Trumpets usually have the reverse situation. So when a tuba player and a trumpet player compare notes on piston vs. rotary, they're likely to have very different impressions.