Posted by Dale Phelps on April 01, 2002 at 10:39:41:
In Reply to: Looking for an F tuba posted by Brendan Bohnhorst on March 31, 2002 at 18:43:34:
Thanks for your note, I have two "vintage" Alexanders, the nickel-silver plated 6-valve horn is from around 1940 and the laquered brass 5-valve was made in 1975, during the mysterious period when Alexander supposedly wasn't building tubas for the general public (it is a former German state-orchestra horn.) The silver horn was converted from a viennese system horn and as you can see from the foto has valves 5&6 low on the left hand.
Both have "that famous" sound, the lacquered one is a little darker-sounding and has a little better low end. Both sing beautifully and honestly if I could keep multiple f tubas I'd keep them both!
The link is to an MS Word file, its kind of big because there are multiple fotos there, but if either horn sounds of interest to you let me know and I can shoot some more fotos.
Regards,
Dale Phelps