Posted by Christian Klein on December 04, 2002 at 19:19:29:
In Reply to: F to Eb posted by Dan Schultz on December 04, 2002 at 17:11:31:
I wouldn't exactly call most german F tubas "cheap", even used (though mine was very inexpensive! ;-).
There's been a 4 valve Alex EEb on "that auction site" for a couple of weeks (nobody ever bid on it) so i'd expect to see it there again sometime soon.
Mirafone made rotor EEb tubas that occasionally come up used.
Meinl Weston did too (i think i recently saw one one for sale in Georgia somewhere).
Cerveny still does.
The Cerveny EEb tubas have the reputation as being pretty good (and cheap!).
I bet it'd be an easier job to find a decent sized EEb you like (perhaps one of the kings you already own) then have a tuba repair guru replace the piston valve section with a four or five valved rotor one (that would also free up an additional valve to graft on to the remaining three valve king). I think if you do the cost analysis, you'll probably come out ahead this way. IMHO, I think this scenario is more likely to yield an instrument that you'll want to play.
cheers,
Christian Klein