Posted by Homer (Doh!) on July 20, 2002 at 06:51:32:
Here's my story and I'm stickin' to it!
I've been looking for an Eb with a little more "weight" for the lack of a better term for a number of months now. I went to ITEC and played every Eb (and F, for that matter) I could get my hands on. I had been playing a Besson 983 and although they are good horns, they are very mouthpiece sensitive (for me, this is an understatement!) and thus, I personally just couldn't throw a deeper mpc on it to change the sound.
Enter Matthew at Dillon Music.
We had talked several times about my search at ITEC (and since) and he mentioned that he really like the Besson 980 he had and gave his reasons why. As always, he made some great points. Dillon had ended up with the show horn I had played in Greensboro. When I played this horn I used my regular Eb mpc and thought it was a nice horn. I tooted it for a few minutes and moved on. It didn't blow as open as my 983, but had great response and terriffic intonation. Fit and finish was probably the best on any Besson I had ever seen. I later found out that it was built with the new German (W. Nirschl infuenced) parts and is the first and only 980 in the U.S. So unfortunately, if you're interested, you can't run out and try/buy one quite yet.
I can use a couple of different mpcs the 980 to change the sound and it doesn't rebel! It plays like a cross between a 981 and a 983 (best of both, I think). This is the only way to describe it. (Maybe they left a 983 and 981 unsupervised in the backroom a little too long! Those 983s are such roughians!)
The 980 now lives with me now and a very good 983 is living in N.J. So, to the several folks that emailed me and I spoke with regarding the sale of the 983, give Matthew a call in a couple weeks (he's on vacation right now) and he'll help you out.
I'll probably still look for a big Eb some time in the near future (Hi, RL!), but this horn is very useable and flexable for what I need it to do right now. I'm getting the feeling that it will probably be a long term "keeper" and not just be passin' through.
I recently posted that I had acquired a Perantucci PT22p and that all was good. This where the the "Doh!" comes in. All was not good. The PT22p has been banished from the house. The whole thing ended up a big disappointment (on several levels).
Oh, well you takes yer chances and........
Best regards to all,
LV