Posted by Steve Dedman on March 14, 2001 at 13:41:56:
In Reply to: Kalison K2001 posted by Lawrence S. Good on March 14, 2001 at 11:08:05:
I played 3 of the first 4 in the series of this model. All three were very consistent.
If I had the money, one of them would be in my practice room. I love the sound. Very warm, lots of overtones, very lively sound. Great projection without a lot of work. It has a really nice ring to it. The horn is very well in tune with itself. It is ergonomically a very comfortable horn for me. I have a fairly long torso, and compact horns tend to be too short. This one, at 39", feels very good. The valves are very fast, and the design of the valve branches is such that it has just the right amount of resistance for me. It's not stuffy in the least, but it has enough resistance to provide an excellent response.
The sound is easily capable of supporting a very large ensemble, but can also lighten up. I would not hesitate to use this horn is a smaller ensemble situation, even a quintet, though you would have to back off of the volume considerably. The nice thing is that you can get a remarkably consistent sound throughout the dynamic range without having to work at it too much.
In short, it's a great sounding, easy to play smallish 6/4 tuba. You should really check one out. You may not like it (as Chis doesn't, apparently), but I would pick it over the PT-6 that I have played.
My $0.02 FWIW.
Steve