Posted by Eric on December 19, 2003 at 23:15:55:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Engineered tuba revisited posted by Andy Smith on December 19, 2003 at 21:38:19:
Those pinto/ranger trumpets are pretty neat, although I havent actually tried playing one. I have tried their other experiment, the Reynolds ERA trumpet with the really small bell throat for high notes, and it sucked, so maybe the Ranger was a similar design flop. My guess is that the pinto/ranger didnt catch on because they are different and designed to be low cost. Other products with similar goals have failed miserably. The Corvair is an excellent example. Even though Porsches, Mercedes, and Volkswagens had design features very similar to the compact chevy, the Corvair was targeted and attacked as being different as the result of cost cutting and not because of advanced design. Had it been sold at a premium, it probably would have had a small niche market and strong following. Chevy didn't learn the lesson from Porsche that a cheap economy car with a different body and a much higher price can actually sell as a premium exotic sports car.
One argument against making an unorthodox cheap tuba is that historically such things havent caught on. People see the difference as being a sacrifice to the god of cost and angering the god of quality. However, if something is different and is promoted and hyped as being better, then it is likely to catch on within a niche if it is high priced. Examples of this are Monette trumpets and Bose speakers. Both companies target individuals wishing to spend an extravagant amount of money on a product designed to be surprisingly loud regardless of the quality of sound. Because of the high price, people do not question the quality of the components and assembly as they should, nor do they notice that the purpose of the special finish is to disguise flaws.
Imagine if the fiberglass sousaphone had been hyped as the greatest advance in instrument making since stradivarius came up for the recipe for his varnish. Imagine if it had been sold at a substantial premium rather than as a lower weight and cheaper alternative to metal. In at least 3 blind tests I can recall (though not in detail), a fiberglass sousaphone has been chosen the best sounding tuba over many more conventional competitors. People who spent the extra x dollars for the fiberglass would have heard the difference in sound as an improvement.
So if you see a funny looking but surprisingly powerful tuba on the market with a lot of fancy buzzwords and a $50,000 price tag...