Posted by Lew on May 09, 2002 at 07:51:59:
In Reply to: Re: My new King 2341 posted by Ed on May 09, 2002 at 07:07:46:
I too had been playing on a 2 piece King that I bought new in 1993. A few years ago I decided that I wanted something different because I found the low end (below low Bb) difficult to play easily and overall the horn seemed stuffy to me. I assumed that bore had a lot to do with this. I "upgraded" to a Cerveny (some might say this was a step down) after many months of trying horns including Yamaha 321s and 641s, the Jupiter 582, M-W model 25 and a Miraphone 186. The Cerveny played the best for me, including an open low end and an easier high range. The Cerveny has a relatively large 0.795" bore. After about 3 years of playing this horn I found that it took too much air for me to be comfortable and there were a few notes that didn't speak as well as I would like.
When the new King came out I was skeptical because I thought that my many of issues with the old King were due to the small bore. I tried out the prototype just for the heck of it and was very pleasantly surprised. The low range had none of the problems that I remembered and ergonmically it was much more comfortable that the older version. Any horn if overblown will distort, regardless of the bore. I find the King to be no more prone to this than my larger bore horns. I continued to try different horns each time I had a chance, and kept coming back to the King. I finally decided that I had to trade my Cerveny for one.
I do like the Mirafones, but I find the King to be more comfortable and the notes speak more easily and precisely for me. Matt Walters' and his tuba testing approach was very useful in helping me to identify what it was about the tuba that made it right for me. If you go to ITEC, check out his lecture about play testing a tuba.