Conn-Selmer to shut down Eastlake

[20IV2]

Posted on Trumpet Herald:

Conn-Selmer. Inc., has filed an official layoff notice with state and local officials confirming it will permanently close its Eastlake brass instrument factory on June 30, 2026, eliminating all 150 jobs at the plant.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2026/04/ ... -good.html

[2nd tenor]

Seemingly yet more jobs being taken from workers in the USA and given to folk in the far east where wages are real cheap. It might be a hard headed business decision or it might be a case of maximising profits with no thought for anything else … you decide. I do buy goods made in China, but what I really want to do is buy something that’s locally made. YMMV, but don’t complain later when your job is also outsourced to some cheaper overseas labour.

[tadawson]

Translation: "Union greed and grift is killing yet another long lived, well known American business."

Gotta wonder if they asked the employees if they preferred unemployment to trying to be competitive?

And the UAW probably couldn't suck any harder . . . the same bozos that complained/defended/forced rehire of a guy who came to work stoned constantly getting fired. (And yes, my attitude *IS* showing.)

[Mary Ann]

I spent a year between engineering schools working in a factory that made things basically like a machine shop. The way they kept the union out was to pay the same wages that the workers would get if the union came in. I thought that was a pretty good solution, because the workers didn't have to pay union dues and the business didn't have to worry about strikes. That said, there were workers there, just a few, who made sure as little work as possible came out, and I never understood what they were so angry about.

[Schlitzz]

It’s obviously a poorly managed company. Y’all need to look at that ownership group. This looks like a job for Super Chicken….

[bort2.0]

It doesn't matter where it's made, if nobody likes it.

[tofu]

Seemingly yet more jobs being taken from workers in the USA and given to folk in the far east where wages are real cheap. It might be a hard headed business decision or it might be a case of maximising profits with no thought for anything else … you decide. I do buy goods made in China, but what I really want to do is buy something that’s locally made. YMMV, but don’t complain later when your job is also outsourced to some cheaper overseas labour.

Seriously - don’t pontificate on something you don’t seem to know a deep amount about and preach to us about consequences as if we are are too stupid to know that actions have consequences.

Eastlake closing is a long running ongoing saga of a company that has been sold and resold. It’s a problem of inept holding company ownership with poor understanding of not only their own business(es) but the industry as a whole and it’s future as well as zero understanding of how there aren’t a lot of synergies to drive efficiencies to lower costs while at the same time improving (much less maintaining QC) in such a diverse product lineup. Not a lot of ways to slash costs of Steinway Pianos / tubas etc. It’s a story also of poor management at the individual business unit level and at the factory level.

It’s a story of poor Union Practices repeatedly not understanding they were in a shrinking industry with more and more global competitors as well as global labor willing to work for lower wages. Combined with the union and led by the union - a work force that had blinders on, of attrition of highly skilled workers due to aging out of the work force (losing craftsman level skill & pride or workmanship) and of a younger work force that has no desire to produce a first rate product. No pride of product. Resistance to any kind of work rule changes and use of any type of technology to improve the work flow efficiency and quality.

This is not really on the consumer. People tried to buy from the “local company” and ended up with a product that had to be rebuilt the day it was delivered. I know personally - I bought a new 2341 back in 2001 (and QC was much higher at Eastlake back then) and it had to be completely taken apart and rebuilt by Lee Stofer. That is not a ringing endorsement for future sales.

I’m a managing partner of a private equity hedge fund. I look at a lot of industries & I’ve been flabbergasted since the 1980’s that anybody would willingly invest in the music business at any level. For the life of me I could not see how it was possible to make a reasonable ROI (or any ROI quite frankly) and it has gotten worse every decade AND yet the proliferation of new instruments has been stunning. The variety of new tuba models alone is insane for such a microscopic market - with zero growth potential. Just look at the schools - districts are still shrinking or eliminating music. That will get worse as schools increasingly focus on STEM and widening sphere of social propaganda subjects that schools seem to think they need to make kids sit through - only so much class time in a day to cover all that and music is usually the first thing that gets the boot. The pool of future number of potential buyers shrinks as the school music program shrinks. Not a lot of adults start buying tubas if they didn’t play in school.

Nobody is making any money in the music industry unless you are Taylor Swift or Beyonce. For some instrumental makers it’s a case of “this is what we do and we don’t know how to do anything else”. For some it’s a case of we will weather the storm and be the last man standing. For some they have a biz model & workforce that can pull this off - I think Miraphone falls in that category. One of the few Co-ops ever that actually works. Some makers such as the Chinese it’s a case of National Policy of looking for labor intensive markets around the world and then domination of those markets via price to force out the established players and become the sole source to a major extent. Musical instrument makers fall in that category of labor intensive of a product that is at best -at the past mature market stage and now just a who can refine the product and simultaneously be the low cost maker. But at the Party level they are rethinking that strategy both from the does it make sense from a dollar stand point but from a GeoPolitcal standpoint of dominating a crucial needed skill set. Musical instrument skills aren’t really a must have for global survival skill set. And they too are now facing major economic headwinds from their own national Real Estate debacle, their own labor wanting better wages & working conditions, the problem of all the rural folks in China still moving to the cities for jobs while at the same time the workforce job pool is shrinking and that is a major fear of the party of unrest in this huge pool of unskilled workers without jobs while at the same time the government has been slashing economic support. Even their abuse of their own environment is coming back to haunt them - much as it has in all other industrial nations around the globe.

But you can’t hang any of this on the consumer. Buyers will seek out the best deal they can. Unfortunately, instruments are a lot like automobiles in that the most expensive bits (like a car engine/transmission/driveline etc) the quality shows up over the years and can’t be visually seen. So people buy that shiny tuba and assume the valves will hold up like say a Miraphone. That’s one of the reasons why a Miraphone holds it’s value. But while a buyer may be ignorant - it’s a bit on sellers to educate their potential buyers of why it pays to buy quality. But you can’t do that if you are Conn-Selmer and your own Eastlake Plant is delivering new tuba’s like the King 2341 that then have to be rebuilt by a skilled craftsman like Lee S or Bloke by the buyer. You don’t want to be preaching about "buy quality" and pay us more for our local (wave the flag product) when you have a competitor like Eastman who is delivering a better QC of your own original design and they have made improvements to the design at a lower (at least initially) price.

It’s a shame Eastlake is closing. Nobody likes seeing folks lose their jobs - and they alone are not at fault for that - to paraphrase a former Presidential Candidate - it takes a Village of Ineptness to kill a company in an ongoing industry you formerly dominated - the poster child for that being General Motors. The only surprise is that the closing of Eastlake didn’t happen long ago. The rest of the company is on a steep downhill trajectory and it’s only a matter of not if, but when they go Chapter 11. Parts are still salvageable and someone will keep them going -such as Steinway as a vanity/status project. It’s such a small market (premium pianos) with no prospects of growth -so from a biz standpoint you can’t make a case for it other than as a loss leader for your other businesses. Much like BMW buying Rolls Royce.

[LeMark]

I spent years trying to find a tuba that played as well as the 2341 prototype I played in the late 90's in Eastlake. The early ones were good but at the time I was "above" buying a BBb tuba.

Then I got older, Smarter, started playing Eb tuba and realized the BBb was a better match for My Eb than the CC was. (in my opinion)

And then I found the tuba that reminded me of that prototype. The Eastman 534

[Lee Stofer]

Tofu,
Thank-you for a very insightful commentary! From a tuba standpoint, it seems that the glory days of American tuba manufacture was during the 1920's and particularly the 1930's. After WWII, there were some very good tubas made, but they were never quite the same, and company buyouts and other changes were well underway by the late 1950's. As you say, it is surprising that the Eastlake Plant stayed open as long as it did.

I am hoping to make several more of my 4/4 York-copy tubas, and know that, even at the price I'll charge for each, I'll be making little profit. They are mostly a labor of love.

I have to wonder how China will fare in the future in this business. Miraphone seems to be hanging in there. The last I heard, the Josef Lidl workers in Czechia are working 6 days a week to fill orders. I am very happy with the quality and pricepoint at which they can be offered. They seem to be
thriving at this point, and show obvious pride in their work.

[bloke]

I haven't played any of the Czech instruments lately.
Aren't there a bunch of them at a store in Columbus?
I pass through there every couple of years coming and going, but it's always around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. (When I have to pass through Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Columbus on the way to Pittsburgh, I try to do it when everyone in those cities is asleep.)

[gocsick]

Buckeye Brass has Cerveny and Buddy Rogers/Willis has Lidl.

[bloke]

Buckeye Brass has Cerveny and Buddy Rogers/Willis has Lidl.

Thanks. Are those all made in the same place?

[dp]

Seemingly yet more jobs being taken from workers in the USA and given to folk in the far east where wages are real cheap. It might be a hard headed business decision or it might be a case of maximising profits with no thought for anything else … you decide. I do buy goods made in China, but what I really want to do is buy something that’s locally made. YMMV, but don’t complain later when your job is also outsourced to some cheaper overseas labour.

oh shut up already

[bloke]

Seemingly yet more jobs being taken from workers in the USA and given to folk in the far east where wages are real cheap. It might be a hard headed business decision or it might be a case of maximising profits with no thought for anything else … you decide. I do buy goods made in China, but what I really want to do is buy something that’s locally made. YMMV, but don’t complain later when your job is also outsourced to some cheaper overseas labour.

oh shut up already

I'm sure that all those who build instruments for the British firms, Wessex and JP, are Englishmen who formerly worked at the Boosey and Hawkes factory on Edgware Rd., but are being farmed out to China.

[Schlitzz]

Seemingly yet more jobs being taken from workers in the USA and given to folk in the far east where wages are real cheap. It might be a hard headed business decision or it might be a case of maximising profits with no thought for anything else … you decide. I do buy goods made in China, but what I really want to do is buy something that’s locally made. YMMV, but don’t complain later when your job is also outsourced to some cheaper overseas labour.

oh shut up already

Geritol.

[Rick Denney]

Here's something I heard Matt say: "The Eastman 534 actually did the things I told King they needed to do with the 2341." Or something very close to that.

I think Conn-Selmer has been cost-engineered for a long time in ways that, e.g., Miraphone has been able to balance against their quality model. Quality suffered as a result. It's not like this is the first time Conn has learned this lesson--the same thing happened under MacMillan when they moved the factory to Abilene, Texas to escape union labor and its associated costs. Turns out, they escaped union costs but also union-worker skill programs and quality went down. That essentially killed Conn-branded tubas until Allied started putting Conn on instruments made at the King factory in Eastlake.

Miraphone survives by branding themselves as a producer of first-world premium products, not first instruments for impecunious students. I think (without knowing) their hope is that by the time the student has stuck with it long enough for their Chinese budget tuba to have fallen apart, they will be more ready and able to afford a premium product. That strategy doesn't always work, of course, and Chinese budget tubas aren't what they used to be (nor are they the same budget proposition they used to be). But I think they are right to focus on the top 10% of the market instead of the bottom 50%, where they can't compete on price and still uphold their brand value. I doubt Conn-Selmer or any of its predecessor management companies have ever tried to build a strategy on that concept, and they tried to compete on price rather than quality. Consequently, they squandered their brand value. That is a theme that has repeated over and over with American industry as the management of companies was taken over by business-school grads from the technical people that founded the companies. Robert Townsend (noted management guru from a few decades back) once stated that he wanted to lead tours at the Harvard Business School, which would be abandoned and in ruins once American corporate boards stopped focusing on quarterly P&L reports. That fantasy has not come to pass, and I think that's a broad problem.

But I think that band programs are also suffering from the general cultural decline that is starving symphony orchestras of audiences and donations. Fewer kids going into band means fewer customers for band instruments, ultimately. I wonder if that problem is as acute in other countries where Miraphone would be competitive.

I have no idea if the current management suffered from the same issues that plagued their predecessors, and the decisions that led to this might predate the people now there. But I think it's clear little has been done to reinvigorate and support true brand value from C-S in a long time. That's why plants close.

Rick "self-inflicted wounds" Denney

[bloke]

Miraphone has also figured out how to machine-make FORMERLY hand-made parts with consistency actually going up, rather than down.

I sort liked the very best of the inconsistent just a bit more, but whatever on that.
-------------------
The late 1960s-era 186 C that "Doc" bought from me is just an amazing tuba. You can just sit there and play it, moving no slides - other than for two pitches - and everything is already centered with the slides left alone.

Of course, first valve D asks for the first slide to be pushed all the way in and double low D asks for the fifth slide to be pulled out, but that's it... and it sounds absolutely beautiful - which is why I was inspired to pimp it out with a super custom silver plated finish.

If someone is looking for the very best 186 C on the planet, they might reach out to Bill and ask him if he's interested in selling it...

[gocsick]

Miraphone is also a worker owned coop or a Genossenschaft in Germany. Only employees can become shareholders... and it has a general assembly, supervisory board, and executive officers all elected from the employee shareholders by employees. Plus any major decisions such as mergers, acquisitions, and other critical fiscal decisions require approval by over 90% of member employees. So they are insulated from a lot of the pressure to maximize returns for investors that most companies face.

https://www.miraphone.de/company.html

[1 Ton Tommy]

This discussion reminds me of what I've read about the demise of the British motorcycle industry:
Post WWII, management refused to make any investment in the companies including even maintaining the machine tools. Workers made valiant attempts at compensating for wide variations in tolerances but I know from personal experience that new bikes had to be substantially reworked before delivery to customers. The same was true of Jaguar Cars. They were worth substantially more once converted to Chevrolet V8 engines and GM automatic transmissions. And when did you last see an Austin Mini that wasn't built by BMW.

The aristocratic company owners simply consolidated the companies into ever bigger conglomerations such as Manganese Bronze Holdings makers of Norton/Villiers/Triumph motorcycles and heaven knows what else. This continued until the last Norton was built in 1975. By then, Royal Enfield had been sold to Indians, BSA was no more and Triumph was the last man standing. The marques that that had tried to maintain quality; Matchless, Sunbeam, Brough Superior, HRD (Vincent) et. al, were long gone. All this in an expanding world market into which the Japanese sold countless thousands of motorcycles -- for far less money than the British ever could.

The music business in the US is certainly shrinking or perhaps consolidating into Taylor Swift Holdings and The Arts as we have known them are not supported much in the US. Yet touring groups such as Tine Helseth's all-brass Ten Thing sold out Seattle's Symphony Hall a year ago toward the end of a long tour, including many small venues such as Medford Oregon. They cannot do that and lose money. They have made several tours of the US so there is demand. Meanwhile our community orchestra struggles to get enough string players, yet the many jazz-oriented musicians struggle to get venues in which to play.

I believe The Arts are better supported outside the US but I don't know if that translates into sufficient market to keep multiple instrument makers alive, nor do I know what the world-wide sales of Far-East made brass instruments is but I suspect it's way higher than here in the US. But maybe not. So maybe the motorcycle analogy breaks down at that point and soon we all will be streaming TS Enterprises AI produced music on our iPhones.

[bloke]

The Arts are better supported outside the US

I would agree, if the adjective "fine" is placed in front of the word "arts", but only via coercion (taxation).

Were individual Europeans free to - as individuals or individual groups - choose to support or not support the "fine" arts (with no coerced taxation subsidies) I feel confident that many (just as in the US) would choose to NOT do so.

Google tells me that Berlin Phil ticket prices range from c. €39 - €111 or from c. €49 - €156, depending on how highfalutin the particular concert.

Google also tells me that Philly Orch ticket prices range from c. $47 to over $100.

With all of that additional subsidization (compared to the US, whereby the NEA in the US - with orchestras as an example - are only federally subsidized by - on average - 3-1/2%), why are top European orchestra concert tickets still so expensive?