Instruments to which we are not accustomed are judged according to those to which we are accustomed.

[bloke]

As is known here, I played C instruments for a half century, and then moved back to B-flat instruments (which I hadn't played since I was 17 years old - other than an occasional meet up with a sousaphone).
At first, particularly the really large B-flat tuba felt really long - almost as if it was a GG contra or something.
After a while, B-flat instruments started feeling "right" to me.
Now, all C instruments (and - in my opinion - I owned some really good ones of those, over the years) both feel and sound "hollow" to me - as if even the most even-playing and most nicely in tune ones feel to me as though they were cut down from B-flat instruments in someone's garage...
... but that's not valid either, but it seems that way to me - based on the fact that I'm now accustomed to playing on B-flat length tubas.

I guess the point is that it's pretty difficult to immediately evaluate an instrument that's not an instrument that one is accustomed to playing. Even if it has really good intonation characteristics and is the same length of instrument that we have been playing, we might actually end up fighting an instrument to wish we are not accustomed, by doing things such as even lipping (otherwise in tune) pitches out of tune, because we're accustomed to favoring certain pitches on another instrument that we've been playing for years...or differences in resistance, or other things that might distract us and keep us from realizing the potential of an instrument that we are attempting to evaluate.