a brief set of comments about currently made double horns for band directors and parents

[bloke]

For you band directors and parents of French horn students, I'm not going to go into specifics here, but I would generally say that Chinese double horns from 25 years ago have evolved the quality of American double horns from 25 years ago (actually some of them to the quality of American double horns from 60 years ago),

and American horns from 25 years ago have DEVOLVED to the quality of Chinese double horns from 25 years ago.

With the Chinese products, I'm seeing craftsmanship, and with the American products, I'm seeing what (appears to be...??) short-term employee-ship.

I'm pretty much seeing the same thing across the board, but - of all the brass - French horns are perhaps the most complicated to build (correctly), and issues become the most apparent with them.

I believe the last thing that I would say is that the default choice of Japanese instruments - to ensure quality - is becoming obsolete, as those prices continue to skyrocket, more Japanese-branded products are made in China and other countries anyway, and the Chinese products - certainly the best of them - are built every bit as well as the Japanese products and some tend to be more sturdy than the Japanese products - even to include the sturdiness of their carrying cases.

[gocsick]

What's interesting to me is how the market diverges by instrument. There is a huge stigma against Chinese trumpets in that community... probably due to the really cheap Amazon level student trumpets.. Despite the fact that Brasspire has a good number of their horns made in China and Yamaha makes student trumpets and even their "intermediate" out "step up" YTR-4335GII in China.. But those are somehow not "Chinese" because they are Japanese companies...

But somehow Eastman, John Packer (Ovis) and Jinbao etc will never be able to make a trumpet worth playing because .. well reasons.. I tried to point out that these companies made pretty good tubas, Euphoniums, and Trombones... only to be told on forums and Reddit that trumpets are just much more complicated than tubas and require a level of precision that Chinese instrument companies can't manage. I don't go to trumpet forums anymore.

[bloke]

You have to realize that trumpet players believe that doing tiny little inconsequential things to their instruments make huge differences, so - as they are the very least grounded of the brass players (and no brass players - as groups - are particularly grounded) it's going to be difficult to get grounded and reality based evaluations of instruments from trumpet players.

Back when Chinese instruments weren't made as well as they are now but we're beginning to emerge, I heard a mid-level full-time orchestra's second trumpet player play some excerpts on a very inexpensive piccolo trumpet that sounded as good as any I've heard elsewhere.

The fact that all trumpets are relatively cheap (including at the boutique level) it's probably going to discourage many trumpet players from looking at Chinese equipment.

Personally, I'm not a fan of JP B-flat trumpets because they're modeled after English trumpets rather than American, but the workmanship is just fine.

The best trumpet player around here recently moved to a custom-made German trumpet - which is basically the bell and mouthpipe of a popular rotary model fitted with a piston valve section. It offers more sparkle than a typical American production professional or even boutique professional trumpet... but - with the trumpet he had made for him - the after-production main tuning slide trigger that they had installed is a must.

[gocsick]

I hear ya ..

A trumpet player, whose playing I really respect, and who is also a lover a vintage Olds instruments... told me that Ambassadors don't slot properly unless you have a copper penny under the 3rd valve bottom cap. It had to be a pre-1982 penny not a more modern one...

Just for fun... I humored him and did a blind play test with mine.... I couldn't tell a difference at all... But then again I'm not a trumpet player.. just a basement noodler... maybe a "real" trumpet player is so sensitive.. like the princess and the pea.

[bloke]

When one takes a look at a trumpet mouthpiece and a tuba mouthpiece and sees that they're about the same length, yet C and B flat trumpets are 1/4 of the length of C and B flat tubas, it becomes apparent that a mouthpiece can make way more difference on a trumpet than it can on a tuba.

Of course, it makes a difference on both, but a really shallow trumpet mouthpiece vs. a very deep trumpet mouthpiece makes a far more stark difference in the sonority of the instrument than does a shallow tuba mouthpiece vs. a deep tuba mouthpiece.
Further, trumpets are so small that even a person like myself - simply in the way that I form my mouth and adjust my air - can manipulate a trumpet to easily sound more shrill or more mellow, which is why I believe so many trumpet players fool themselves into embracing voodoo.

I realize that I'm not a scientist and you are, but I believe we are both amateur psychologists, having been on the earth for a while.

[peterbas]

.

[bloke]

That guy's a piker, as far as his ability to tear up stuff - compared to typical 13-year-olds...

... at least modern day 13-year-olds - whereby they are immune from corporal punishment or any other consequences.

[Grumpikins]

A few years ago I took my son to Dillon to try out some double horns. He tried a dillon horn, an (80s?) Holton, and a newish Eastman demo horn. I had him play the same solo on each with his mouthpiece. The dillon horn was not good, sorry. The holton was my favorite sound wise. Very beautiful rich sound. But there were a few notes on it that really gave him trouble as in they wouldn't slot/speak. He played the eastman horn for a few minutes, stopped, and said "wow!" He's been playing it for 4 years now and it has been fantastic. The only problem has been the strings loosened up, but they're strings and I assume that is to be expected.

[mrmacklems]

Overall quality has shifted over time. Many Chinese-made double horns today are built better than older Chinese models and now match or even exceed the quality of American horns from decades ago. At the same time, some American-made horns seem to have declined in craftsmanship[.][https://share.google/APWYRKccDTQvkfaSf] Since French horns are complex instruments, these differences show up quickly. Japanese horns are no longer the automatic “safe choice” either—prices are high, production is often outsourced, and top Chinese horns now offer comparable quality and durability, sometimes even better cases.

[bloke]

Japanese are pricing themselves out of the market and I believe self-overestimate their desirability. It takes non players (who are responsible for buying a lot of instruments... ie. school teachers) a very long time to figure out what's what, and - just as with a lot of other academia - pass down dubious information from one generation of academia to the next, and I suspect that's the market that Japanese instruments are mostly targeting.

Really fine players who are also teachers have become aware of some of the remarkable instruments that are coming out of non-Japan Asia, and are showing those instruments to their students.
... By the way, though way lower priced then European and Japanese instruments, these instruments are no longer inexpensive.

I've also seen some instruments that I'm absolutely sure are made in China that some boutique sellers are passing off as building themselves, but there's no way that I'm going to out them either publicly nor privately.

Finally, I've always found it amusing that those who view Chinese instruments as a threat to American manufacturing of instruments (rather than diminishing American quality actually being the threat to American manufacturing of instruments) have never considered Japanese instruments (which often are assembled reliably, but about the best thing that can be said about playing characteristics of many of them is "non offensive") as a threat to American manufacturing of instruments.