Hey Folks, I received this one a couple of weeks ago, and have certainly had a few issues come my way. First off, the horn was sold without a case, and let's just say that the seller had never shipped an instrument bigger than a cornet before, and the condition it arrived in reflected that lack of experience. The bell was severely crumpled. I initially thought to send the horn back and ask for a refund, but the seller profusely apologized and agreed to pick up the tab in its entirety for repair. He immediately refunded part of the purchase price and I got the instrument back from repair shop on Monday. They rolled out the dents very nicely. This was not a pristine horn to begin with, and I must say that I would have to look very hard to find any evidence of damage. When I break out my brand new Wessex euphonium gig bag that I've not used yet, I found it doesn't fit! These American style front action euphs are apparently longer than the British style top action horns by at least 2-3 inches. I returned it to Wessex, and they suggested their compact tuba bag in exchange. I don't think length will be too much of a problem, but they acknowledged that it would probably require some amount of padding, etc. If this would be my primary horn, I don't think I would be satisfied with that, but for a horn I plan to use fairly sparingly, it is probably okay. What do you think?
So, how does it play? Very well in my opinion. This horn is just like the 3-valve bell front Ambassador that I played in middle/high school. Overall, definitely easier to play than the compensating horns. No, it doesn't have as broad of a sound and richness of tone and it still would not handle a solid fortissimo and up as well as the compensating instruments, but as an amateur how often would you really need that? As an amateur, only 2 obvious situations come to mind: First, brass bands will require a solid fortissimo quite often (but I'm playing baritone now, and that doesn't affect me now per se), and secondly, whenever I would play a euphonium solo in church. Other than those situations, why wouldn't I want to make my life easier?
Only one downside about this horn's playability and I'd like feedback on how to correct it....it plays FLAT...15-20 cents flat across most of the range except the 2nd line (bass clef) Bb partial which is even worse. And it seems that the mouthpiece I'm using (a G&W Carbonaria) has nothing to do with it, as I've tried a more traditional cup size, my Doug Elliott F-cup (like a 6.5 AL) in the horn...and with the exception of that Bb partial (which brought the pitch up to only 20 cents flat) it did not help the situation at all, and only made the tone more trombone like. Any other suggestions? A fairly radical one to try would be to have the tuning slide cut, but I'd like to avoid that if there is anything else worth trying. Aside from the flat pitch, the horn's intonation seems quite good.