Posted by Henry on February 25, 2004 at 09:25:41:
In Reply to: Re: Silver Plate Weight posted by Lee Stofer on February 25, 2004 at 08:51:12:
Thanks. The effect of different materials on the sound of horns is - well- out there. From cyrogenic treatments to lightweight brace free construction or heavyweight "focused power..." construction and the full array coatings from none to you name it. I note that as a rule of thumb the acsribed benefits are usually directly proportional to the cost of the treatments/materials. (bare brass being the poor but enthusiastic man's fallback treatment) Clearly a solid gold flute with diamond studs on the keys must have a more ethereal sound....... I attribute most of this to the well known "a freshly washed and waxed car runs better" theory of engineering.
Mainly I got to the office at five- worked through lunch- and at two in the afternoon decided to vegetate by going through old tubenet postings where I came across an amazing bit on the weight of silver plating with Rick Denney claculation away in fine fashion as to just how much weight plating added to a horn. It seemed to me likely that the lacquered horns actually weighed slightly more- but no one in the lengthy thread had contemplated the weight of the lacquer removed or not applied when a horn was plated. I see no significance to the weight difference at all and I prefer plating simply because is appears to be, based up9on my own limited experience with trumpets/ cornets/sax's and a few tubas to be far more durable. Back to the salt mines-
Henry