Originally Posted by
davewerden
Oh, and I applaud your choice to avoid the trigger for your situation (or what I assume it is). They are handy implements sometimes (and necessary on some horns), but in addition to making the horn more awkward and heavier when standing, they are more susceptible to damage. At ITEC 2010 I had to play a world premier piece with a borrowed horn because my old horn's trigger/slide had gotten bent in the case on the airplane. It was just enough to make the trigger useless. And it is possible for some triggers to break and leave no way for you to even set the tuning slide in one position and leave it. A triggered slide is too loose to stay in place.
I assume you do a lot of travelling and that conditions are not always ideal. And I assume that you would not want to explain to the boss why your horn doesn't work at a gig. When I had the triggered horn, I used to tell people that if I had still been in the CG Band I would have ordered the horn without the trigger because of the vulnerability factor.