Posted by Jay Bertolet on September 03, 2001 at 10:10:10:
In Reply to: "Blind Date" with a tuba posted by Bugalugs on September 03, 2001 at 01:07:26:
Absolutely never!
Every single one of my tubas was play tested (by me) before purchase. And I do send them back if I'm not happy with what is sent. This issue came up recently for me:
I have been trying recently to get my hands on a good cimbasso. You all know I'm an Eb player and it makes a certain sense to me that a Meinl-Weston Eb cimbasso might just be the ticket. I am keeping my options open in my search by not discounting any models or brands but my first attempt was to try and get one of these MW cimbassos for a trial. If you look at the MW catalog, you will see that they offer their F cimbasso in 5 valves and their Eb in only 4. You all probably also know my penchant for 5 valve instruments so you can imagine my side of the conversation with Mike Russo at Brasswind in trying to arrange some way to get a MW Eb cimbasso with 5 valves. It turns out that this is nothing special to MW, the Eb and F cimbassos are basically the same body and it would require slapping a slightly modified 5 valve section from an F cimbasso on an Eb model to produce the desired result. Mike and I agreed on a price that the factory specified and I was ready to proceed with the order. That was when the factory stipulated that, because the instrument was a "special order", the instrument could not be sent out on trial. If they made it, it was considered sold. Mike's hands were tied because his boss wasn't going to allow the instrument to be purchased by Brasswind and then, possibly, sit in a corner gathering dust if I didn't like the horn. I pleaded with Martin Matthies directly but to no avail. With no further recourse, I decided not to proceed.
My opinion is that any instrument I am going to purchase is going to be verified to play adequately for me, by me, before I lay out the kind of money instruments are going for today. I wish I could afford not to take this position but I just don't have that kind of cash to potentially throw away. I take this position for the two obvious reasons; I have to be able to do my job on the horn, and the horn has to be marketable if I decide to sell it. I've learned that lesson the hard way with my Cerveny 601. That horn plays great but because Cerveny instruments seem to be out of vogue, it still sits in my studio unsold for the last 1.5 years. Brasswind themselves have had a couple of Rudy Meinl cimbassos sitting in their stockrooms for years. My guess is that while cimbassos are very interesting instruments, they aren't widely popular at this point and any that are potentially for sale had better be really superb instruments to have any real chance of resale.
I believe that it is completely reasonable to receive a trial period on any instrument you would purchase. Considering the variation from instrument to instrument even in a single model production, it just doesn't make any sense to purchase a horn without playing it first yourself. I certainly hope that manufacturers will allow players that very basic opportunity to be sure that their product will serve the individual player well. After all, happy customers are repeat customers.
My opinion for what it's worth...