sidebar re: Willson euphoniums

[bloke]

These instruments are 100% yellow (high zinc) brass...unless they've changed something (and/or are now offering options).

Thus, they need to be kept CLEAN and lime-FREE.

Over the years (and all locally), I've seen THREE of those instruments end up being eaten away (from the inside out) by their (private) owners' lime deposits...

...and eaten away in areas that cannot be replaced, and can only be patched.

Even when the dissolved-away parts are completely replaceable, the Kurath people's pricing of replacement parts is ~not~ what I would rate as "low".

bloke "They ain't econoline horns..."
https://www.wwbw.com/Willson-2900S-Seri ... 00000.wwbw

[LargeTuba]

If I'm paying $9,000 for a euphonium it better last my lifetime and my child's lifetime.

[Doc]

Kinda like owning a BMW or Mercedes... neither are econoline and neither are cheap or easy to repair.

[bloke]

If I'm paying $9,000 for a euphonium it better last my lifetime and my child's lifetime.

There are plenty of NOT-rotten high-zinc (ie. "yellow" brass) instruments that are over a century old.

Today (in our "disposable goods" society), people are much more prone to (mistreating expensive equipment, as if mistreating a horse) "ride hard, and put away wet".

Yellow brass instruments can be made to last several lifetimes.
Bach "Stradivarius" instruments are - nearly all (unless special order) - yellow brass.
Some are allowed to rot to pieces, and many are not.
Just as with Willson euphoniums, they are/were not cheaply-made.
Yellow brass is the most commonly-used metal in brass instrument manufacturing, and is not a "cheap out".
I can't be completely certain that yellow brass instruments sound much different than high-copper (80:20 / 90:20 / etc.) brass instruments, but - when I've had two or three of the same model of instrument sitting out to compare (with one or more of them being yellow brass), I've always been drawn - sonically - to the yellow brass ones...and this may well be a coincidence.