Here in Switzerland I think most people buy silver plated piston and lacquered rotary tubas. Nearly all rotary instruments are lacquered, I only once saw a silver plated french horn. Trombones nearly always are lacquered, silver plated ones are mostly military instruments. Piston trumpets, I think ...

~20 (after ~20 years on trumpet and other brass)

Well, a swiss army knife is not a universal tool, it can do the things it's intended to do, but most of them not very well. The normal swiss army knife is a bad tin opener, a not very good corkskrew, not a very good knife either. Maybe the toothpick is ok. I know what the expression means, but in ...

The MW 2040/5 Eb tuba is my "Swiss Army Knife" tuba. It'll will always be my first choice for anything, band, orchestra, jazz. Quite often I choose to play Eb tuba in orchestras instead of the big CC, I like the way it blends with the trombones and trumpets. In both orchestras I play, nobody ever ...

Apropos thumb ring: I almost immediately removed it, it could not be attached at a comfortable position for me. I should have them somewhere, if I find them I can post a picture.
Regarding the mouthpiece: My tuba has a small receiver, not very small but smaller than the pt6, I needed to get a pt72-s.

Thank you. My parents lived in La Palma (Canary Islands) and I often went for holidays there. Since I don't want to stop tooting even on holidays I bought a used 983 maybe ten years ago and had it there so I could use it when I was there. It was great, holidays with a lot of tuba playing ...

I owned two 983 but lost one in a volcanic eruption. The one destroyed had better valves than the one I still own (and keep far away from any volcanoes). I always used a pt72 mouthpiece someone on the very old tubenet recommended and I still think it's a great choice and started to use it on my ...

Here in Switzerland Alphorns are in Gb mostly... I guess they want to stay among themselves. So, if you are not an anti-social mountain dweller I think you are better off with one in F. I know a few people who play, I could find out who makes good alphorns here, although probably a bit expensive ...

MW 2040/5 without hesitation. I love to play the pt6 in orchestra though and would surely miss it there, but the MW is not so bad for that either and great for everything else I do.

These are pricey and probably won't get to the US for christmas, but they look brilliant https://aufbauhaus.wixsite.com/croxbelt They work on Sousaphones too! Thank you, a link I have noted for the future. This looks extremely well engineered I know Jürg, he is an engineer who plays tuba, ...

Instead of posting some questionable knowledge of mine I googled it: It's marketing, UK introduced it as a sign for inferior quality and had it marked on all german products entering UK and the germans just transformed it into a sign of quality (see Wikipedia for details) and used it for all exports ...

Three tubas. MW 2040/5, ycb-822 (or PT-20, when it will finally be repaired) when I'm at home (for space reasons) and pt-6 when I can go to the practice room. I don't play more than one tuba in one practice session for practical reasons, so four sessions a week EEb and three CC normally (depending ...

My MW 2040/5 is my main tuba for many years now. I also have a pt20 and last year I bought a pt6 for the really big stuff. Every time I play CC tuba I ask myself whether this could also be played on the e flat and more and more I tend to say yes to this question, even in orchestra, even for the ...