Posted by Chuck(G) on April 23, 2002 at 22:55:51:
In Reply to: Re: Re: How Many Tubas Are Made a Day? posted by CK on April 23, 2002 at 22:21:29:
Dunno, Charlie, but one of these outfits, Beijing Eternal, had a brasswind output in FY2001 of 65,000 units. Even for the likes of VMI, that's a lot of instruments!
...and Beijing Eternal isn't the largest manufacturer, just the only one I could find production data for.
It's interesting that decent pianos are starting to be made in China. Yamaha has some of its models made by the Pearl River Piano Company and a couple of other firms advertise that they've installed the best European piano-making machinery.
One of these days, a Chinese manufacturer is going to hire themselves a good European tuba craftsman and pay him a bunch of cash to teach them how to build good tubas. And then they'll build about a million of them and sell them for half of what everyone else is asking. After all, the technology is 19th century; it ain't rocket science, but on the other hand, the Chinese are launching satellites on Chinese-built rockets...
Scroll down the Deyong offerings and you'll see that they've got a compensating euphonium planned.