As you can see in another thread in this forum, my final choice was to go "low end" and buy the Schiller "American Heritage" clone of the King 7B.
Over a few months, I made the following changes and acquisitions:
- Added an Edwards Bullet Brace. It took a surprising amount of time for me to adjust this so it's comfortable, and this also required adding a wine cork over the thumb support bar. But I'm VERY comfortable with the horn now.
- Had the lead pipe pulled and replaced it with a Brass Ark press fit BH62 brass lead pipe. Huge difference.
- After MUCH experimentation, settled on a Rath B1.5W mouthpiece. For me at least, this is vastly superior to all the others I tried on this horn.
Since I would have acquired a Bullet Brace and mouthpiece for ANY horn I bought, these things don't distinguish what I needed to do to the Schiller horn from other possible purchases. I might also have wanted to go with a different lead pipe as well.
In any event, for $1,000 or less I have ended up with a double valve (independent) bass trombone that I'm very happy with. The fit and finish on it is excellent, and the slide is great. A very close examination will indicate that it's not entirely of the same quality as something like a Bach or Yamaha (or of course, Edwards, Rath, etc.) -- but that's mostly in the area of the absolute precision of the tube extrusions, takes a pretty good eye to notice, and has no effect on performance. And recent reports indicate that contemporary Conn and King products are suffering from the same issues.
I've thought a bit (encouraged by my wife!) about replacing the horn some time next year when I get reasonably good at trombone. But honestly, I don't see any point to that now. I really like the horn, I'm comfortable with it, it has no problems, and the sound is great.
Gary Merrill
Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)