Hello all. I thought I'd share some impressions of my new Wessex Wyvern CC tuba, since there isn't a whole lot of discussion on this relatively new model online yet, and also since there is a lot of interest in Wessex instruments in general for which my experience with this instrument may be applicable.
For context, I'll add little background on this reviewer: I'm primarily a trombone/baritone/euphonium player and tuba is fairly new to me, so I don't have a huge amount of experience with other tubas to compare this to. I had a Chinese clone of the Yamaha YCB-621 3/4 CC previously which I liked very much, but I decided I wanted either a compensating instrument or one with five valves to further my low register capabilities. My tuba playing is mostly limited to what I call musical cross-training. I feel like playing tuba in my practice studio does great things for my breath control and low register on the other instruments I play. While I wanted a more professional instrument so that I could explore playing the instrument in some ensembles, I was not ready for a $10,000+ German instrument. I had been impressed with many (but not all) of the Wessex products I had tried at their trade booth at both NABBA and TUSABTEW, especially their 3-valve compensating British-style baritone and small-bore jazz trombones. At the 2016 NABBA and TUSABTEW events I compared directly the Wyvern tuba to instruments from several other makers and judged that the quality was really good; and as far as I was capable of judging that it was a really good playing instrument as well. I liked the idea of a 4-piston+1 rotor front-action CC 5/4 instrument similar to the PT-6P or MW5450 which seem so popular with the tubists I work with often in the local scene. I also liked that it was Wessex's original design and not just an improvement on a pre-existing model in their manufacturer's line-up, which is an approach which may lead to design compromises. I put in my order for a silver-plated example in mid-April and was allocated an instrument that was already en-route, which was delivered to me in early June.
The instrument came in a large strapped cardboard box with foam-in-place packaging at both ends and arrived via fedex ground without any damage. It came with a Wessex ball cap, Wessex pen, a very luxurious polishing cloth, a super nice mouthpiece pouch, and with a baggie including an extra valve spring, guide, water key cork, and rotor valve rubber stop. This is a nice touch that I have not seen from other manufacturers, but when someone gives me something I get greedy and think about what else would have been great to get as well: it would have been really nice to get an extra set of felts as this is always one of the first things that wears out and needs replacement after a year or two of ownership. Even though I usually take the manufacturer's provided valve oil and throw it away in favor of my preferred brands, it is customary to see a new instrument come with a bottle of valve oil. The Wyvern did not. The included mouthpiece is a "Wessex Chief" and appears to be a European-shank Helleberg clone, and has a very nice rich gold plating. Curiously, while the included mouthpiece fits perfectly in the instrument, it also included a small adapter/extender in the instrument, perhaps to fine-tune the gap? I've been playing without it and it seems to be better for me that way.
My initial impression was that the silver plating is of very high quality, with a deep shine, smooth surface, and almost no micro-scratches on the inside and outside of the bell and the major outside surfaces of the instrument. This is much better quality in comparison to a more expensive European-made euphonium I purchased recently. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that not all the fine details are quite that good. The bottom half of the valves on the inside of the instrument as well as some of the interior tubing and some of the stays/braces on the inside of the instrument are not well buffed, and have a cloudy appearance rather than a mirror shine. This is fixable, but it is surprising considering how well finished the rest of the instrument is. The joint where the T-handle meets the second valve tuning slide had a big green splotch on my instrument, perhaps an acid bleed from soldering. This cleaned up OK with silver polish but did leave a tiny flaw in the plating. The rear cap on the rotary valve is a slightly darker shade of silver color than the rest of the instrument, did not lighten up with the application of some silver polish, and is the same color on both the outside and the inside which leads me to think it is unplated nickel-silver rather than silver-plated like the rest of the instrument. Time will tell for sure as nickel-silver will age differently than silver plating. This is hidden when the instrument is in playing position, but is still a little odd and I suspect might have been the accidental use of an unplated part on a plated instrument rather than designed that way. This cap has a nice CNC-engraved Wyvern (dragon) on it and the opposite outside-facing side of the valve has some decorative engraving around the circumference. The bell is engraved with a large wessex logo and the Wyvern there as well in a simple thin light outline.
The only thing I would describe as a quality defect on the instrument is that one of the round "pads" that hold the brace/stay to one of the ferrules on the main tuning slide looks like it lost a fight with a pair of pliers before being installed on the instrument and plated and is fairly "chewed up" -- that is to say not smooth.
The instrument is nicely layed out and is easy to hold and work all of the relevant tuning slides. For me, the leadpipe reaches just the right spot with the instrument sitting in my lap and the tuba angled slightly to the left, but it's also workable with the instrument sitting on the chair between my legs and held a little more upright. The main tuning slide is at the front bottom of the instrument and extends fairly far down across but not past the outside edge of the main bottom bow. If you lean the instrument outward, you can feel the main tuning slide dig a bit into your leg. This isn't a problem, but with it so exposed at the front of the instrument like that I might worry about damage as I move the instrument around -- or that it might get pushed in without my noticing and cause me to be sharp as I lift the instrument up to playing position. Once in a while the water key will push against my knee and get held open. The fifth valve (flat whole step) tuning slide is on the back side of the instrument up against the player's chest and faces up. The first valve tuning slide is right where you'd want it, at the top of the instrument closest to the bell and very easy to reach. The second valve tuning slide is immediately adjacent and features a T-handle bringing it up just about an inch and a half lower than the first valve tuning slide, making it also very easy to adjust while playing. The third valve has an upper-facing tuning slide just slightly lower than the handle for the second, and a second tuning slide down at the bottom of the instrument. This arrangement allows you to set the lower tuning slide for proper intonation and use the entire range of the upper tuning slide for adjustments on the fly. The fourth valve has two tuning slides as well, with the top one being furthest to the right as you play and slightly higher than the first valve tuning slide. This arrangement is very logical and it is easy to find all of the tuning slides as you are playing.
All of the tuning slides came very well greased and perfectly aligned, and all of them are very easy to move and re-install after pulling, if not a little stiff. A lighter grease freed up the ones that I move while playing a bit. I find this to be perfect although some players who pull slides a lot on-the-fly may want to polish and/or lap the tuning slides a bit more to move even more freely. I like that Wessex left them on the stiff side to give the player the choice of exactly how free they wanted them as it's harder to put the genie back in the bottle if they are made too loose from the factory. I should mention that the alignment of the tuning slides is worlds better than I have experienced on any other Chinese-made instrument, and actually significantly better than the aforementioned European-made euphonium. The tuning slides give a good range of adjustment with no issue getting up to A442 with some room to spare, as is needed in some ensembles these days.
Although some high-quality instruments have brass tuning slide inner and/or outer tubing, many of the best instruments use nickel silver tubing. I believe that the extra hardness of nickel silver contributes to good slide action and helps prevent damage. The inner tubing on the Wyvern tubing slide legs is nickel-silver, and although it's hard to tell due to the silver plating, I believe the outers are as well. They certainly are on the lacquered examples I've seen of the same model.