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Hello friends,

Growing up on fixed bell Mira(f-ph)ones, please enlighten me about the detachable and recording bell 186s. I'm ignorant to their purpose use, but think I'd rather carry around a recording bell 186 in my shoulder harness than a sousaphone if I ever need to play in a moving style again. (I've marched with recording bell Kings before in college, that should point out my alma mater...)

Do they have any intonation issues due to the detachable bells. I know the King I played seemed far more restricted with the recording bell than my 186CC and definitely more than a Symphonie..

Thanks!

Other than the player not being able to hear the sound as well (just as with any other bell front tuba), I don't think they sound much different than the regular 186.

I own a detachable-bell 186. Haven’t played it for many years as it is more or less on permanent loan to a nephew. Anyway…no intonation problems noted. It’s a great horn, no matter which bell you are using.

In terms of sound adjustment, the hardest change for me was moving to cello. I'm just not used to the sound radiating from down there! I've gotten better, but it is still weird coming from the brass world. Even classical guitar is more "normal" sounding in placement.

ronr wrote: Thu Dec 11, 2025 10:52 pm I own a detachable-bell 186. Haven’t played it for many years as it is more or less on permanent loan to a nephew. Anyway…no intonation problems noted. It’s a great horn, no matter which bell you are using.

Do you know the approximate inside diameter of the horn at the ferrule? I'm wondering if it would possibly work with a King upright bell?

King upright bell on the right. 186 on the left.

York-aholic wrote: Fri Dec 12, 2025 12:44 pm King upright bell on the right. 186 on the left.

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From that view, it looks like the 186 would be wider where the ferrule is. Thanks for the post!

Yes. I tried putting the removed king bell in the 186 bell. When fully inserted, rims touching, the OD of the King’s male tenon was just about an exact match to the ID of the 186’s bell (ie it fit inside).

My suspicion is that the Miraphone collar would have to go farther up the King bell (would need to trim off some of the small end of the King bell) so you’d end up with very sharp tuba.

In college, I had a detachable bell Miraphone like yours. Found an extra (but brittle and cracked) recording bell for the collar. Zig Kanstul walked to a corner of the factory and came back with a Contra bell that had a defect in the rolled over bell rim. He had one of his enployees put it on the correct bell mandrel, slid my extra collar on and mark it, then scored the Contra bell at the right spot. I don’t remember how they cut the bell’s small end off. Then they soldered my collar on. All for $150. Even back in 1996 or 7, I thought that was pretty generous of him.

It looked good, but was short and put the horn in B natural. :-).

Robb Stewart had one of those CC to BBb contraptions that you slide into the place of the MTS. Robb modified the contraption to be like a tuning slide with a loop (if that makes sense). That got it down to BBb. I seem to remember it played/responded better with the stock slide and recording bell that it did with the looped MTS and shorter Kanstul bell.

Sorry, camera picture of two old physical pictures. I think that thing was serial number 1300

prodigal wrote: Fri Dec 12, 2025 6:50 am

ronr wrote: Thu Dec 11, 2025 10:52 pm I own a detachable-bell 186. Haven’t played it for many years as it is more or less on permanent loan to a nephew. Anyway…no intonation problems noted. It’s a great horn, no matter which bell you are using.

Do you know the approximate inside diameter of the horn at the ferrule? I'm wondering if it would possibly work with a King upright bell?

I’ll ask for a measurement

I used to own a detachable bell BBb 186. The front bell was standard; a St. Pete bell had been rigged up with an extra flange as the upright bell. I later got tired of both and had the bell replaced with a Besson 17-inch bell, shortened just slightly to match the ferrule diameter. See my thread "Bessophone." What I noticed worst was that the tenon was exactly in the wrong place, playing havoc with the intonation of 1st ledger line Eb 1st valve. Next was that the idiomatic flat fifth partials on middle line D, etc., were worse than usual. My advice: stay away.