Kurun & Gilbert (K&G) Mouthpieces

[bbocaner]

You are mischaracterizing the transaction. First of all, I have no idea why you'd bring this up nearly 8 years after the fact. Second of all, your web site at the time never said anything about gold-plated mouthpieces not being returnable. I would never order a mouthpiece that was not returnable, seeing as there is so much variability in the way they are described online. Third, I returned the mouthpiece within your 15-day window - I shipped it back on 12/31/2012 after having received it on 12/29/2012. That's 2 days I kept it. I opened the the paypal dispute on 1/22 after tracking showed that you had been in receipt of the mouthpiece for several days and did not respond to email inquiries about the refund. By the way, that was a refund for 278.40 euros for two mouthpieces after only ever having been sent one mouthpiece. My point about the paypal fees was that if you had issued a REFUND of the original transaction on paypal, neither of us would have had to have paid fees. By sending it as a payment back to me, both of us had to pay fees.

In any case, I maintain that your products are great -- but at the time it didn't make sense to do further experimentation to find the right size for me as it was clear that shipping back and forth from Virginia to Malta was just going to take too long. Now that you have dealers in the US I might feel differently about it, except I have a problem with a vendor who would come onto a forum to lie about the transaction I had with them.

[Dennis Kurun Camilleri]

Hello Barry,

I posted after eight years because you post your post after five years and I had the right to respond you. If you want I will sent all conversation. How can you try a mouthpiece in two days when a mouthpiece have to work after weeks and months. About the dispute here is your paypal dispute hope it will not be hidden. Not us we came to a forum to tell a lie it was you to go in a forum for a second time to make us bad reputation after we gave you full assistance. As I told you we sold hundreds of mouthpieces and till now we didnt had any complaints.

service@intl.paypal.com
Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 9:29 PM
to info

Hello Dennis Camilleri,

Barry Bocaner has opened a dispute over the payment made to you on 17 Dec
2012 indicating that they never received the item.

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Transaction Details
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[bbocaner]

I opened the dispute because:

1. I had paid for two mouthpieces and you only ever sent one (hence never received the item)
2. I had already returned the one several weeks prior,
3. you had made it clear via email that you were not willing to let me work with your trial policy to find which of your products worked for me.
4. you were unresponsive to direct communication

How can I tell in two days that a mouthpiece isn't going to work for me? When it is not the size I was expecting. From my email to you:

You list the inside diameter of your 5 rim as 25.75mm, but having set my calipers on your mouthpiece at the point just past the inner bite, they extend fairly far into mouthpieces I use from Giddings and Webster that supposedly measure 25.60mm and 25.70mm, and my Bach 5G which supposedly measures 25.50mm. It does feel smaller than I would like on my embouchure and the sound is slightly brighter than the mouthpiece I am currently using, which is slightly brighter than the ideal sound I’m after. Because of this, I wonder if your model 4.5 or perhaps even your model 4 rim might be a better fit for me. This is fine, I just need to calibrate my expectations about what I would receive based on your system of measuring relative to other manufacturers and the measurements you list on your web site.

There is nothing *wrong* with this, I understand that measurements of mouthpiece diameters are made on a curve and different vendors have different ways of expressing that. But having purchased literally hundreds of mouthpieces over my playing career, and kept most of them, I'd say your published measurements are an outlier.

With regards to the mouthpiece stem not fitting correctly in the instrument receiver: you dismissed my complaint implying that the problem must have been with my instruments, which every other mouthpiece I had ever tried fit perfectly. I was willing to accept that the "trombone" model might not fit perfectly in a euphonium, as trombone mouthpieces usually go into the end of the leadpipe rather than into a receiver, but your attitude about it did not give me confidence that the euphonium model wouldn't have the same issue.

I stand by my original post which was not negative, but mixed. I thought your products looked beautifully made and your rim design was very comfortable, I felt the size measurements listed on your web site were deceptive (a notion backed up by several other posters on this forum), I said I was unable to provide a full accounting of the way the mouthpiece played because of this, and I mentioned that working with you was notably difficult, a sentiment that I think you are proving for me.

[Dennis Kurun Camilleri]

Hello Barry,

1.We know that you paid for two mouthpieces and we sent you the Tenor T5C large Gold so you will begin the trial with the Trombone mouthpiece until the 5D will be available and as I told you the Euphonium mouthpiece was out of stock and we had to wait for industry of plating for gold plating schedule. This was our e mail to you.

Gilbert Spiteri <gilbert@kandgmouthpieces.com>
Dec 18, 2012, 11:11 PM

to barry, K&G, me


Dear Mr. Bocaner,

Thanks for your order.

The tenor trombone mouthpiece will be shipped tomorrow. However, since we do not have in stock and since the plating house is on shut down for the Christmas holidays, we can only supply the euphonium mouthpiece on the 2nd week of 2013.

Sorry for any inconvenience. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions.

Gilbert

2.If you sent the mouthpiece several weeks prior the important when we receive the item not when the customer ship it. We need to give refund when the item will arrive at our premises.
3.We were all the time responsive till the dispute.

As I told you in the conversations you cannot measure a mouthpiece from the inside rim with the caliper as the curve will cheat all the time and all the brands have different curves. For accurate results you have to measure flatter surfaces.
About the complaint of the stem all our large shanks have the same radius and we didnt had any complaint about wobbling or fitting. If yours was wobbling or not fitting well all our customers around the world had/have the same problem but no issue regarding this. As I told you in our conversations from my experience when I purchased new mouthpieces sometimes there will be slightly wobbling till you twist the mouthpiece in the receiver and until you get used to it. You was right that there were posts commenting about the rim sizes but finally all of them are pleased with our mouthpieces.

Barry finally we had a pleasure communicate with you and the only issue was the dispute and nothing else. From 2011 till now our designs were updated and improved. We are ready to complete assisting our customers. Now you are comfortable to try them out at Dillon.

Best regards
Dennis Kurun Camilleri
K&G Mouthpieces

[bbocaner]

1.We know that you paid for two mouthpieces and we sent you the Tenor T5C large Gold so you will begin the trial with the Trombone mouthpiece until the 5D will be available and as I told you the Euphonium mouthpiece was out of stock and we had to wait for industry of plating for gold plating schedule. This was our e mail to you.

I've got all the same emails you do, you don't need to quote them for me. We originally discussed you sending different models based on my experience with the T5C being smaller than I expected it would be. When you then also made it clear that you weren't going to give me the opportunity to return those if they also were not suitable, I realized the relationship was not going to work out and asked for the refund. That same day I contacted another mouthpiece maker who gave me the opportunity to work within his system to find the sizes that worked for me. I've bought 12 mouthpieces from him so far, and I'm planning to get more!

As I told you in the conversations you cannot measure a mouthpiece from the inside rim with the caliper as the curve will cheat all the time and all the brands have different curves. For accurate results you have to measure flatter surfaces.

I am well aware of this and, in fact, said the very same thing in my post. This is absolutely fine and it's why you have things like trial policies, but you and your employee martin cooper told me you were not going to let me return additional mouthpieces, even though I was willing to pay shipping both ways as well as a restocking fee.

That's why I told you to just go ahead and cancel the order and refund the price I paid for both mouthpieces (minus any restocking fees and shipping charges).

I'm willing to chalk the mouthpiece stem issue up to being a one-off manufacturing defect, but you acted like it was a problem with me or my instruments.

I was pleased with your mouthpieces, too. And if Dillon music had at the time a bunch of them in different sizes in stock I could try out and find the right model for me, I'd probably be playing them today. Dillon has always been wonderful to work with and in fact shipped me several trombones recently to try out, and paid all the back-and-forth shipping charges themselves - a gratuity I did not expect but certainly appreciate. But your abrasive attitude (maybe this is a language or cultural issue?) and unwillingness to let me try out more than 1 model within your trial policy meant it just wasn't going to be workable.

[JakeGuilbo]

Sorry to jump in, but I've had issues with my K&G 3.5D inserting into different Euphonium leadpipes, a problem I have not had with the Wick. Wobbles is indeed the behavior that happens, unless I screw tighten the mouthpiece into the receiver. This was most apparent on the Yamaha Neo. It is not an issue on any of the Adams I have had.

All that being said, it's the best mouthpiece I've ever played. I returned a Shires Q41 med shank because I could not get THIS particular mouthpiece for that instrument.

[franz]

I too introduce myself to share my experience with K&G mouthpieces. They are by far the best mouthpieces I have ever played with ( euphonium, trombone and baritone). Actually, the comparison table that appears on the site can be misleading, in the sense that the measurements of the internal diameter can be considered exact ( making the measurement on a curved surface does not give a reliable result in absolute terms) but the K&G mouthpiece, compared to another of different brand with the same inner diameter feels smaller on the chops. probably the rim shape has such a conformation as to give this sensation. For me they are the most comfortable mouthpieces I have ever had which allows me a stamina increased by 100 percent with exceptional flexibility an at the same a safety in the attacks. As for the shank I have not encountered problems of any kind; they adapt perfectly to my instruments. I highly recommend them.

[franz]

Just posted on Facebook:
THE K&G EUPHONIUM MASTER RANGE MOUTHPIECES.
The new range of the Euphonium Master Series is developed to achieve more precise details. It features the same rim profile, cup and bore with a newly designed backbore that produces maximum accuracy.
Following the success and positive feedback we received on the standard series, we decided to keep this model and include the new updates in our latest euphonium mouthpiece design, The Master Series.
Both The Standard and The Master Series are of a high performance. The standard is wider in sound quality while the Master range is less wide with more definition in all registers.
The Master Series produces an increase in air velocity that creates a more powerful and bold sound. The characteristics of the sound are that it is more focused and centered with an enhanced projection followed by a lyric sound.
Will be available soon !!
Best regards
Dennis Kurun Camilleri
K&G Mouthpieces