Posted by Charlie on February 24, 2002 at 00:16:34:
.This is strictly a post to let you know how it played from a tuba player standpoint and not a Miraphone push or promotion. I did not even work the booth, I went as an individual especially wanting to play it and see how it was. So please do not go there.
I got to play the 1291 BBb piston at TMEA and I went in early two mornings before anyone was there to really get to play it and hear it. This was a yellow brass 5 valve. This was the production model using the new tooling. The only thing that was handmade on it was the leadpipe.
I hope others post that tried it out as well with their feelings on how it played and what they thought.
I used a T cup Doug Elliott with a 132 2N rim and a 5E and 6E shank and the 5E works better with the tuba. The 6E worked better with the 191 and its Gb and this was a good 191 at the show. I had a constant problem making the upper Gb center on the 1291 until I went to the smaller 5E backbore and then, no problems at all the the projection was even better. The 5E works awesome and makde the tuba even more centered. I played the 191 and the 1291 side by side until people were allowed in. The 191 had a warmer darker sound but expected with the gold brass. I would really like to compare a gold brass 1291 to a 191 gold brass to really see the difference.
Valves were stainless, very nice, fast and very easy and no problems. This is a huge improvement.
The 1291 is very centered, very even in all registers, great sound and projection and they worked out the intonation bugs out from the prototype. The low register is very responsive and it is easy to play in all volumes, in all registers and the upper register speaks too easy. The pistons are big because of the large bore but it has big finger buttons and we asked them to possibly make the finger buttons more square on the ends instead of rounded like in mouthpieces to make less chance of fingers slipping off. Hand position was very comfortable.
This is a solid tuba. It fools you when you listen while you are playing but I got Markus Theinert to play it and I walked off and it definately projects.
They did not have a price on it yet and this was the first and rushed.
A very fine BBb tuba well worth looking into if you have probably a little more to spend on a good piston. I am sure this will be a little more pricier than the 191 and definately more than the 2341 but a worth it from what I played.
Go to ITEC and see and play for yourself