Looking at some new Euphoniums for college

[bbocaner]

The best to my knowledge Besson is made by the Buffet Crampon group and I know the 4 valve non compensator is made by B&S.

B&S and Besson are both brands of the Buffet Crampon Group. The legacy B&S factory in Markneukirchen is where most of their European-made instruments are made, including Besson Prestige and Sovereign euphoniums since 2007. Last I heard, the student-level (noncomp) instruments were made in India.

Starting in the late 1990s but prior to 2007 The Music Group owned Besson and parts were made at the Keilwerth-Schreiber factory (also in Markneukirchen, now also a part of the Buffet Crampon Group) and assembled in the UK.

Before that, they were made entirely in the UK and were owned by Boosey & Hawkes, which is now just a music publisher.

A lot of people like to say that the advent of the national lottery in the UK in the mid-1990s meant that brass bands got a lot of grant money to buy new instruments which led to a demand problem and consequently poor quality control. Around the same time, Besson, for a period, switched to a system in which they used a precision computerized mill to finish pistons rather than hand-lapping them into their casings. I'm not sure instruments from this era are truly poorer instruments as a rule. I had a 1990 sovereign that was truly awful from a quality standpoint that I replaced with a 1994 sovereign which was a really fine instrument. That's just one set of data points, but I'm personally convinced the reputation that globe stamp instruments as well as UK-made instruments from the 80s and early 90s get in some circles is not completely deserved. There were always some good ones and some not so good ones.

With regards to a trigger - any instrument CAN be played without a trigger, whether it be through lipping or alternate fingerings, or a combination of both. But at what point is this diminishing returns? That question is answered differently by different players. I prefer to not have to use alternate fingerings at all if I can help it. And having a trigger can help there. But the 6th partial on Besson instruments has always been high. It's better on the german-made instruments than on the older ones, but even the top players playing on new prestiges today can be seen burying their thumb in the trigger for those 6th partial notes. It has nothing to do with the production, which is generally excellent. It has to do with the acoustic design of the instruments.