Posted by Mike on February 04, 2004 at 09:27:16:
I will finally be buying my first tuba (even though I am 36 years old) in the next couple of months and I have a question about getting the best price. I don't have the budget or time (i.e. wife's permission) to take a trip to try a lot of tubas at a large retailer. I pretty much know the horn I want based on advice from this board and conversations with other players is the new Jupiter 482. It is within my somewhat limited budget and sounds like a decent horn at a very good price.
I live in the Twin Cities and I could order the horn from a reputable dealer like Dillon's or WWBW and I am sure that I would get a fair price but I would have to pay around $150 for shipping. However, in April the MENC Conference is coming to Minneapolis and the Jupiter Band Instruments will be at the Expo. The question I have is can you purchase horns at expos like this one and if you can will you get a better price than going through a dealer since it is direct from the manufacturer and I might be able to get a demo? If it looks like I could save a considerable amount of money, I will wait until April to make the purchase. Otherwise, I will order one sooner. The big thing I want to avoid is finding out that I could have saved a lot of money if I would have just waited.
Please keep your advice to whether I can get a better deal by waiting for the expo and not on why I should buy a different model horn. Thanks.