Bag- Altieri or Gard?

[JVickers]

I second the Cronkhite bag. Mine has been with me on planes and long car trips (from Oklahoma to Illinois and Alabama), all without any damage whatsoever. I've had it for going on four years and even after daily use it's still in great shape.

[Markmc611]

I have one of the Soundwear bags, it's about 4 years old. My only complaint would be on the backstrap clasps and the stitching on the hand straps. It looks like the newer bags don't have those problems, but if I had it to do over, I'd get the Cronkhite bag. I've got a trombone travel bag and one of his double trombone bags. If you were to buy a cronkhite, do it through the Horn Guys.

[Jrpetty24]

The Fusion Bag looks like a really nice setup, again more info would be great, but I am tempted to jump on that for as is. To me this bag seems like the Samsonite of the gig bag area. As far as the rim area goes, even with my Marcus Bonna Case that came with my Adams, it doesn't have a whole lot of padding in the rim area nor does it have anything to hug the area, so what I did to supplement that was added a folded micro fiber cloth under the rim to give it extra cushion that seemed very lacking. Maybe once I feel like spending money again I will buy one and let everyone know more about it. Maybe by then the extra sleeve will be large enough to fit all of the 12in+ bell models, as the reviewer on the site mention his York Eminence wouldn't fit in the sleeve but he still has no problems.

[Jrpetty24]

I talked with the gentleman who reviewed the bag on the Fusion site, and according to him the interior padding is very good in the bell/rim area. Did not mention any rim slot for the horn like Gary mentioned that the gard bag has. I'm making the slightly educated assumption that the 30mil padding is only the interior padding minus the sleeve. He mentioned that his York did not fit in the sleeve because of a height issue not a bell size. For those that didn't see the video there is also a strap that goes across the body of the horn to secure it. I also asked him about space for music folders, and he said that he has room to put his in the main pocket with the built in mouthpiece pouch. "Everything about the fusion I found was top notch. Even the little things like the pockets, handles and straps. Very comfy and really helps even with a heavy instrument. "-Jonathan Munn per our facebook messages.

[Garcky]

What about adding backstraps to a hard case? I found this in a search. The straps attach to d-rings on the case. You can buy d-rings in many configurations and add attachment points to any hard case, I'd think. It would make long totes for heavy instruments a lot easier. I'm considering this for my Blessing euph hardcase, or maybe a folding luggage wheeler, with the case bungied to the carrier.

http://neotechstraps.com/case-packer.html

[ghmerrill]

This used Soundwear euphonium bag just showed up on Tubenet for $100:

http://forums.chisham.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=64357

[Euphgbs]

If anyone is still looking for a gig bag I got a soundwear bag for sale.

George Sanchez