Posted by Jay Bertolet on January 11, 2003 at 10:17:12:
In Reply to: Re: Nirschl WN-15 CC tuba posted by john c on January 11, 2003 at 09:55:05:
Actually, the WN-15 is the 4/4 horn Walter was making. The official model number on the York Copy is WN-18. Just FYI.
One of my students here has a WN-15 and it is a wonderful horn. Unfortunately, I believe that you will only find one of these used now. Walter has stopped making them because he's working with the Besson company to build a factory that will mass produce these instruments (or an instrument extremely similar to the WN-15) under the Besson label. My information is that the factory is close to completion but every time I hear that, the date gets pushed back again. Further, with Besson's current financial problems there might be issues with this horn ever seeing daylight. That would be a real shame because they are great horns by all accounts, either the new Besson model or the WN-15. Let's all hope that someone makes this horn available to folks again. It would be a real shame to let this design go away.
BTW, the price is not outrageous on the WN-15. I believe that when they were selling new, the price tag was around $8000.00. No worse than any of the other top-end instruments out there.
My opinion for what it's worth...