Posted by Jay Bertolet on January 09, 1999 at 10:05:21:
In Reply to: Recording Bell Size posted by Tom Caudron on January 08, 1999 at 15:27:23:
Good question, I wish I could answer it. I've always been curious about this myself. Paul Ogushwitz gives a good, and mostly accurate, description of why recording bells were used but the real question was "why are these recording bells so large?". I was wondering this same question a couple of months ago when I saw a recording bell Mirafone BBb for sale on eBay. I was very curious as to the size of the bell diameter since I had never seen a Mirafone bell with a diameter of over 18 or 20 inches.
Maybe someone with some acoustical expertise can weigh in on this topic and explain why the bell diameter on recording bell tubas seems to be an average of 24+ inches.