What Are The Best Brass Instruments?

[kickhaltsforlife]

oops. my bad. The way I understood it, there was two King baritones. One with a Large shank and one with a small shank, but both with the .500 bore. I stand corrected

I could be wrong still... feel free to double check my info.

[Gmello99]

I would say if you wanted to combo shot of sound, durability, re-sale, and a company that will get you almost anything you need quickly.....I'd go with Yamaha. Working on horns on a day to day basis, Yamaha has a fantastic parts and retail department. Ask your surrounding area high school and middle school directors that have marching bands what they use, because thats who you are going to be able to sell your brass and percussion instruments to for the most part. Yamaha horns are very durable, they sound great, and for people like me.....are super easy to work on. The tolerances in the horns are almost at ZERO!!! That means every horn is the same from top to bottom. All the trumpets are the same....all the mellos are the same.....all the baris, and euphs are the same....and all the Tubas are the same. It would be hard to find anyone out there that would want to buy a Kanstul, King, Dynasty, or Jupiter trumpet over a Yamaha Xeno trumpet. Everyone that I know of that has purchased used drum corps horns have been super happy with their Yamaha line from top to bottom. Kanstul might be the most durable horn ever made.....I say this because I played on a Kanstul G-bugle back in the day....but they also are the most expensive durable horn ever made. For a corps looking to start off and buy new instruments all the way around....Yamaha would be my suggestion.

[MattWtrs]

Being a bass trombone/euphonium player, I have been lucky enough to test out the Dynasty, Yamaha, Kanstul, and King marching baritones. Here's a few thoughts-

Playing on the newish Yamaha Xeno Bass trombone myself, I have to say I'm a little partial to Yamaha. That being said, I really did like their baritone. It felt good in the hands, and their wasn't a whole lot of compensating that one had to do to play in tune. The only thing I have against the baritone is that I wish it could take more air without getting edgy. One BIG plus for going to Yamaha would be the Xeno Trumpets. I have quite a few friends that play on them, and they all swear by the horn's ability.

The King baritone by far was the most natural to carry. Great sound, good responsiveness, and I couldn't see or hear anything I didn't like (for the most part) about the horn. The only big drawback for me would be their trumpets. I have quite a few friends that just don't like them. Seeing that I have not played the horn myself, that judgement may be one that I am not qualified to make.

Hmm... Kanstul. Built like a tank, plays great, feels good. Solid horn, good resale, and would do very well on tour. The only drawback? They're expensive.

And now for Dynasty. Marching this horn last summer, I hate it. Pitch centers are all over the place in the upper register, there is a brace that gets in the way of holding the horn in the left hand, the sound is thin, and the horn feels stuffy. I was lucky (maybe haha) enough to get a brand spanking new horn for tour and found out it played worse than the older Dynastys. I actually ended up switching horns halfway through tour because I couldn't stand it anymore. The only redeeming quality for the Dynasty line is that they could go through a nuclear war and still come out fine.

Hope any of this helps.

[Shadow_7]

From my perspective.

Deg decent all around. Nothing stellar. But decent. I've had good results getting parts from the brass shop. And other value options. I don't normally have much success selling said horns, but they sure are cheap.

Kanstul mostly stellar. A few boring entries on the marching side. But mostly stellar. Easy to sell. Almost too easy. Not perfect. But pretty stellar.

Yamaha. Not much ownership experience. But a friend owns one and had valve issues from the get go. A pretty stellar horn, but less perfect than the Kanstuls IMO.

King, I haven't found a better sounding Euphonium. Not all exhibit this trait. But the one on display in Pasadena 2007 was nice... On a Kelly 1 1/2G very nice... Despite it's ergonomic issues, I'd buy one in a heartbeat < $1k used.

I own a Bach 37 ML. A nice horn. I tried a King Marching trumpet, not quite as good, but decent. The Kanstul 103-whatever is so so as well. the 15## is decent though. Not much exposure to the Yamaha's. NOT being a trumpet player. Bach 37, hard as hell to sell for $900+. At least with current economics. I could probably sell it tomorrow for $800-ish. But not being much of a trumpet player, I'm not really impressed that much with most trumpets. The Bach 37 is decent, the Kanstul 15## is nice. Getzen AHFT is nice (not quite a trumpet though). But it's such a personal taste issue in high brass. In low brass there's much clearer winners IMO.

[AZFan]

I throughly enjoy playing on the jupiter horns. The euphoniums play as clean and as smoothly as their upright professional concert instrument. The contras are pretty well balanced, as a high brass player, i didn't experience any difficulties finding the center, and the seemed to have just the right about of resistance to sound good in the center of the staff and below. The mellophones, my only complaints are that E5 doesn't center well (but on what mello does it?), and that the 3rd valve side moves too easily for my tastes, i would like something that takes a little bit more effort to move so i can gauge better where i need to kick to when playing A5. Trumpets are trumpets to me, so i'm no judge on it but the center of the range sounds good from those who play it well, and the upper register seems to cut through an appropriate amount.

I do like the sound of Yahama, and only have experience with the mellophones, and they play nice. They sound more like a concert horn to me than a mellophone, so it depends what you want. As a line, Yahama takes the cake for me, but Jupiter isn't a bad choice.

[vferrera]

I really liked Boston's sound in 2009 and I believe they were playing King. I'd have to say I prefer their sound to most of the corps that were playing Yamahas. Bigger, bolder, more clarity. Yammies always seem a bit muddy to me.

[wvu80]

Buy American.

I'm not kidding.

+++

For a more detailed analysis, can there be anything better than Penn State Chris's post #58, further upstream in this thread?

http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/forums/inde...t&p=2716359

Great job, Chris.

Edited January 1, 2010 by wvu80

[Steve Knob]

From having used them in the past as an instructor and band director, here are a few of my thoughts;

King - Baritones have horrible intonation on the thrid partials (open F), older Mellos are great

Jupiter - Mellophones have terrible 2nd partial (low C), Baritones and Euphoniums are prone to braces popping loose

Dynasty - Great horns for a great price, but can be problematic with fragility and valve guides

Yamaha - Mellophones are very thin and flat in the upper register

Kanstul - Great horns, but very pricey

[Penn State]

From having used them in the past as an instructor and band director, here are a few of my thoughts;

King - Baritones have horrible intonation on the thrid partials (open F), older Mellos are great

Jupiter - Mellophones have terrible 2nd partial (low C), Baritones and Euphoniums are prone to braces popping loose

Dynasty - Great horns for a great price, but can be problematic with fragility and valve guides

Yamaha - Mellophones are very thin and flat in the upper register

Kanstul - Great horns, but very pricey

Steve, which Yamaha mellophone do you speak of, 202, 203, or 204?

[Kamarag]

Jupiter - Mellophones have terrible 2nd partial (low C), Baritones and Euphoniums are prone to braces popping loose

The Jupiter baris and euphs play like a dream though. I'm betting the brace issue gets fixed with the second generation horns. Additionally, Jupiter's Quantum tuba is, quite simply, the best sounding tuba on the field today.