I was just about to reorder some valve oil and stumbled across the fact that in 2017 Yamaha released a new line of synthetic valve oils: Yamaha Superior Synthetic Valve Oils. The two interesting points here are that the oils are a different synthetic formula and that they also contain some added anti-corrosion component.

Somehow I missed this development in oil offerings, but I tend to order enough oil that it lasts me for a few years -- and I find that Yamaha synthetic oil stretches quite a long way in any event.

But an additional point of interest is that they've added a new even lighter oil specifically for those having "very tight valve tolerances": Yamaha Super Light Superior Valve Oil. It's interesting that they now see a market specifically in this area, but they seem to be targeting "custom and professional trumpets" rather than relatively low-end Chinese-made euphoniums. Perhaps they just choose to ignore the competition. They do say that with their own Professional and Artist series instruments the continue to ship the Light (rather than the Super Light) version.

Here's a thread on a trumpet forum, with some interesting observations: https://www.trumpetherald.com/forum/....php?p=1508914.

The Light version works excellently for me, and so I don't at the moment have any interest in the Super Light. But for those with very tight valves, it might be an option. Available, of course, from Amazon, if you really need it tomorrow.

Obviously, the previous Yamaha valve oils were merely adequate or "meeting expectations", and not superior. I'm particularly interested in their claim that this oil has "even molecules" in it. Probably there was a meeting at some point where the marketing people asked "So what can we say about this stuff to distinguish it?" Then the chemical engineering guys looked at each other and rolled their eyes and said "Well ... uh ... the molecules are pretty symmetric." And the marketing people said "GREAT! We can run with that!" Or possibly the chemical engineering guys decided to jerk the marketing people around and said "Well, the molecules all have an even number of atoms in them." And off went the sales campaign. We'll probably never know. But I digress.