"good - especially for the price"

[bloke]

I've really grown weary of hearing or seeing that expression.

Either something is good or it is not good.

Bridges are often built by lowest bidders.
Are they all - then - "good - especially for the price" ?

OK then,
back to lacquer vs. silver...

[Casca Grossa]

I've really grown weary of hearing or seeing that expression.

Either something is good or it is not good.

Bridges are often built by lowest bidders.
Are they all - then - "good - especially for the price" ?

OK then,
back to lacquer vs. silver...

This past summer, I purchased a King 606 trombone for $150. Used by a student who actually took care of it. Only a few scratches on it. The parents had it serviced before selling it to me also. It is an outstanding instrument for the price. As with all feshonal trombones, it is lacquered.

[ProAm]

I’ve wondered that. Why do you rarely see silver plated trombones, student or professional, these days? Is there a reason? Silver trombones were not uncommon in the early- to mid-1900’s.

I myself prefer the look of the different materials used in building so prefer lacquer or raw.

[bloke]

Bright silver plated trumpets became a "thing" when Carl Severinsen was designated to replace Skitch Henderson at the leader/conductor of the Tonight Show Orchestra in 1967, and played (same as with his flashier-and-flashier clothes) a SILVER trumpet because it was unusual and attracted additional attention.

[Tubeast]

In German, there is a distinction between "billig" (i.e. cheap both in price and actual value) and "preiswert"
(not necessarily cheap, but still reasonably priced and definitely worth more than its price tag suggests).

On the other end of that range there is "teuer", especially "ZU teuer" and "wertvoll".

I actually find those to be valid and relevant distinctions.

[matt g]

Well in English we have words too!

Cheap
Economical
Thrifty
Budget
Inexpensive

But the main problem is people posting ads without understanding subtleties of the words.

[pjv]

I've really grown weary of hearing or seeing that expression.

Either something is good or it is not good.

Bridges are often built by lowest bidders.
Are they all - then - "good - especially for the price" ?

OK then,
back to lacquer vs. silver...

I think it's not that something becomes good because of the price. It just becomes a more interesting option for purchase.
Not everybody makes a purchase for the same reason you might.

You are in a unique situation. Practically every professional model tuba has made it's way into your hands (I assume). As a repairman you have the eye and experience to determine the quality of a brass instrument and whether investing in repairs/augmentations a good idea is or not.

I always look at quality vs price. Tuba/trombone playing is my only income which puts my income at around the legal poverty level. I prefer to live within my means. No loans, debts, softdrinks, chips, blah blah. And no superfluous tuba investments!

I believe someone mentioned some Chinese instruments as being 2/3rds a good instrument for 1/3 the price.
I use my (Chinese) cimbasso and euphonium about 5x a year (between the two of them).
For the price, these were good investments. The instruments are "good enough" to do the job.
If I played more often on them then I'd want a better instrument.

I've often purchased instruments which were "good for the price" because I wanted to know what it was. I'm not the sort of musician that can determine a tubas quality immediately. I need to take the horn into the field, learn what I can do and can't. So a "good for the price" horn is often a stepping stone to figuring out what suits me best.

Tuba's aren't cheap (top models have commanded 5 digit prices for some time now). I can't buy even a Siegfried (for example) just to find out that it doesn't work for me. But if playing less quality horns (with similar qualities to a said Siegfried) point me in the direction of this said tuba then I've done my homework well and can consider making a larger investment.

And, sorry, the bridge comparison doesn't fly. A bridge, airplane, medical instrument all have to be top quality for very obvious reasons.
An endoscope for the purposes of an operation also needs to be top quality. The one I use to align my valves was about $15.
Good, especially for the price.

[cjk]

I've really grown weary of hearing or seeing that expression.

Either something is good or it is not good.

Bridges are often built by lowest bidders.
Are they all - then - "good - especially for the price" ?

OK then,
back to lacquer vs. silver...

This post is good, especially for the price.

[bloke]

There are some instruments (including some made in Asia) that are good and compare with any, as long as a/their players are fond of their playing characteristics. I'm speaking of build quality, and attention to detail. I sell some of those, because I already do a lot of repair and I don't have time to repair brand new things in order to sell them.

Some people seem to be happy with econo-cimbassos, but - to me (having owned one) - playing the one that I owned was like pulling teeth, not to mention those dubious rotors and linkage. (I believe that - when I was asked to perform the solo part on the Tomasi quartet piece, "To Be Or Not To Be", more of its shortcomings became much more apparent.) I could get a sound out of mine and I could make it work and play in tune with some considerable struggles, but I couldn't pick it up after weeks of not playing it and expect it to work, even though I did a great deal of work to maximize the functionality of its mechanisms. (Perhaps removing slop on a sloppily-built instrument was part of the reason why I couldn't rely on the mechanisms to work after sitting up for a few weeks?)
Being a sloppy instrument that also is a knock off of (to me) a difficult to play western design with a bore size that is out of out of balance - defined "not good" (at any price) for me, and it was still several thousand dollars. Admittedly a few thousand dollars today is only the equivalent of a few hundred when I was growing up, but it's still some money, and I prefer to spend my money on things that are good "period". As far as disposable income is concerned, I don't suspect that very many of us have very much of that anymore, and are mostly all in the same boat. Our rulers took away our jobs, our economy, and any remaining value that our currency formerly had.
I would have loved for that instrument to have been good, but picking it up was always dreaded, and cause me to do things like tighten up my shoulders, tighten up my neck, and do things like that. I didn't want to spend a whole bunch of time building one of those things, and I can't believe how lucky I ended up being - not knowing anything about what I was doing, but I'm so much happier, and it was still "good for the money" (plus the tremendous amount of expended time) because it's good (extraordinarily good).
When the majority owned - of a rare type of instrument - are
the make and build quality of the one that I formally owned, I can understand why not many people think they need to own one. I would predict that were some quality manufacturer to build one just like mine and offer it for about twice or a little more than twice the price of the thing I formally owned, that quite a few people would buy them, really enjoy playing them, and find myriad uses for them - more than just a half dozen times a year that they felt like they needed to use it.

I didn't mean to take someone's remark about their budget cimbasso and go off, but it's a pretty illustrative of the point I'm trying to make.

[DonO.]

I think the phrase in question has validity in certain circumstances. Obviously, something is either “good” or “not good”. But comparing apples to apples, how much was paid for it? In my case (no pun intended!) I decided that what I wanted for my “come back horn” was a new King 2341. I asked for advice on this forum and found out that many of you regard that particular model fairly well, even though warned about its quirks (collects water, you have to do the spin, slides not always quite aligned, you have to break in the valves yourself or get them worked on, etc.). But once I had decided on that model I started to value shop. At the time the street price was 7800. Now they are over 9000 new. I found a demo horn that was sold as used but seemed to have been played very little if at all (the valves were not broken in) for 4700. I have been extremely happy with it and have never regretted the decision. So is a King 2341 “good”? It would seem so. If you buy one for 9000 dollars, it’s still good. But if you buy basically the same thing and only pay 4700 dollars, then it becomes “good, especially for the price”. I mean, apples to apples, if you could pay $1 or $2 for the same apple, which would you choose? I

I suspect that this is not the kind of scenario our esteemed bloke was referring to, and I am not saying the phrase is not overused. It is. But I don’t think it should be abolished, only that it be used selectively and only in situations where it truly applies.

One of my pet peeves is overused phrases. “It is what it is” is a prime example. There are many more examples, but now I’m getting off topic.

[bloke]

warning: typical bloke stream-of-conciousness-ess

Your King almost has no > playing < quirks. A water key in the right spot, and a $2,000 piston and casing rebuild/upgrade (of a good used new-style King bought for $3,500) - along with slide alignment, and shortening the #1 and #3 circuits yet a little more - would make one of those things as good as anything and better than the vast majority of things.

Some of the hopeless products - that come to my mind - feature complete sets of slide tubes that probably should be thrown in the garbage and completely replaced, due to how loosely they fit - inside-to-outside... but then we get down to (attempt at an analogy) buying a $170 Walmart lawn mower and replacing all the parts with Honda parts (paying individual parts prices and custom shop labor) until it's as good as a Honda... resulting in a $2,500 or $3,500 expenditure for a goofball 5HP push mower. (whereas your King - in contrast - would be absolutely worth a "blueprint and balance" type of go over - which is what I'm doing with my Miraphone 98, actually).

I think it would be interesting to offer an "artisan" version (since that corporation already uses that terminology) of the King 2341 - for another $2,000 - that is put together as it should be. Schools wouldn't buy those, but I would wager that a good number of individuals would. Further, I think the brass slide tubes are just fine. I know Wade likes nickel-brass tubing, but brass tubing is easier to lap in smoothly, just as the very finest built nickel plated pistons are probably better than the best built stainless steel pistons.

As far as this "Artisan" concept is concerned though, I'm not sure whether there are actually any artisans working in that place anymore.

I think it would be interesting for JP to build a 2341 type of instrument to their typical high build quality, with slightly shorter circuits, and for pricing slightly lower than the good-enough 2341 knockoffs out there... but they already seem to be B-flat heavy in their line, and strongly tilted towards the UK market. Continuing to edit as I type, I find JP's 379b to be something better and very much the same type of purposed tuba as a 2341, and I believe I like the 379b a little better than I would like even a tricked-out 2341. Yet there are others who focus on the type of valve mechanisms an instrument is fitted with, more so than playing characteristics.
=======================
I have no idea how last year I came up with such a stroke of insightfulness, because I'm not particularly smart and I didn't quote anyone, but in my facebook history crap I saw where I posted (far more well-worded than this) that part of the maturing process is realizing we are boring others when we tell them things that they don't want to know, don't need to know, or can't possibly actually know. I believe this also pertains to how well equipment parts are assembled and fitted or how well all sorts of tasks are executed.

[b.williams]

I've really grown weary of hearing or seeing that expression.
Either something is good or it is not good.

I agree! I would rather see written "This is a good playing tuba. It costs $_ _ _ _."
Then I think, "Wow that's a good price!"

Lacquer!

[bloke]

yes.

[jtm]

There are some instruments (including some made in Asia) that are good and compare with any, as long as a/their players are fond of their playing characteristics. I'm speaking of build quality, and attention to detail. I sell some of those, because I already do a lot of repair and I don't have time to repair brand new things in order to sell them.

...

I have an oldish Mirafone. It has the best build quality and attention to detail I've ever seen in a tuba. It doesn't quite play itself, but it makes me sound better than any other tuba I've played. Any time I play something else for a bit and then come back to it, I'm reminded how good it is. I probably won't actually forget what the price was, but I will care less and less the longer I get to enjoy it.