Posted by jerry on November 11, 2002 at 15:17:14:
In Reply to: Re: Tuba Quality posted by Rick Denney on November 11, 2002 at 12:26:50:
Rick,
interesting thoughts, Rick. two follow-up questions, for you or anyone who knows:
1) you mention that the bland sound reputation of Yamahas is probably due to their design. what's the acoustics basis for a bland sound design? it doesn't seem like inconsistency of thickness and strain in hand-hammered metal would lead to desirable warmth of tone or other non-blandness. [relatedly, Tim's reply to the original question includes the comment that there's no humanity in machine made horns, and that handmade ones have personality. does that mean the same 'life' or nonblandness that you mean, which you don't attribute to machine making?] and why wouldn't Yamaha liven up their tone via design tweaks in recent models?
2) your comment about design cost being amortized over the lifetime of the model's production makes me wonder if really the cost is amortized over the accumulated lifetime of the current model and all 100 years of predecessors, because at this point every horn design is a tweak on existing models, and a piecing together from others. That is, is there really any substantial new cost for design anymore now that there's many good models to build on?
jerry