Posted by Rob P-M on August 25, 1999 at 07:53:23:
In Reply to: Bill Bell CC/New King CC posted by Matt G on August 22, 1999 at 21:15:17:
I played around with the new King CC (which you can get both as a 4 valve or 5 valve -- the 5th valve is designed so you can easily add it later to a 4 valve horn, really interesting design!) at the Brass Conference in New York this Spring. I'm probably not the best judge, being primarily a BBb player (on a King 2341 'warhorse' which I think perhaps the most underrated tuba around). I really liked everything about it except the finish, which seemed to be sandblasted/satin silver/sort of. I would call the horn a smallish 4/4 in size, but the sound was full. In fact I liked it well enough to seriously consider getting one and moving to CC. It was not stuffy in the lower register like many of the smaller CC horns I've played around with and it just sang up high. Perhaps the best person to ask about the horn (if you don't want to talk to the UMI folks) would be Matt Walters (aka the repair wizard) at Dillon. I know Dillon worked closely with UMI in the design of the horn and the idea was to produce a high quality American all around CC which would not be priced out of the market. I think they succeeded. Try it, you might like it.