Posts made by ROWUK

@trumpetb I will insist that "stretching" the spring will not improve performance. We may be able to squeeze a bit more life out of it, but if our stretch is NOT ABSOLUTELY STRAIGHT, the spring is damaged and will actually have worse performance.
Stretching a spring for more tension also assumes that the stretched wire will hold the stretch, that would have to be proven on a case by case basis.

I would insist that Hookes law does not apply here.

F = kx

“F” being the amount of push or pull is on the spring

“k” being a constant, indicating the stiffness of the spring

“x” being the distance the spring was pushed or pulled

Our distance that we stretched is a deformation of the wire and the "new" base for testing. Stretching the spring means that we exceed its elasticity, thus destroying all of the original parameters. What K is left after deformation depends on the spring material and tension. Now, if we retemper after stretch, we have a new animal. I have never read about retempering valve springs.

@kehaulani said in Buying a new home audio system:

I'm a simple guy, too. Sound first, technology . . meh. Give me a set of KLH speakers and an Onkyo amp and I'm a happy guy.

I do agree with one thing, though. Check the equipment's input jacks. They are different on various equipment and don't take for granted that the ones you need are there.

KLH Model 9s were about the best that money could buy once upon a time, and even today they are still very, very close! I am not sure that there is an Onkyo amplifier suitable however...

@trumpetb said in Tough Decision to make:

That is so true ROWUK we are often captivated by a single horn and attribute characteristics to it that maintain a reverence for it that is not borne out by the real facts.

What I mean by this is, the sound of a horn is a correlation between the embouchure the players characteristic sound, the mouthpiece used and the instrument itself.

I cannot say how many times that the sound of a horn has been utterly transformed by a mouthpiece change or to a lesser extent an embouchure change or to an even lesser extent a change in my sound concept while playing.

It is often asked which horn will make this sound or that sound or it is asked what horn dizzy or louis or chet or miles played as if we might sound like dizzy on dizzys horn.

No

We can however mould ourselves if given the right guidance and the right mouthpiece to go some way towards achieving the sound that we crave. Or even better our own sound.

We can play mariachi, symphonic, lead, smooth, the instruments are largely limitless if we know what we are doing and if we can match the equipment to ourselves and mould ourselves to the equipment.

chet dispensed with his flugel saying he has no need of it he can sound like a flugel on his trumpet if he chooses to. I am convinced he could easily do that.

But then some horns have that extra something that cannot be emulated by changing mouthpiece or changing the approach.

The best mouthpiece cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear even if it can get very close to it.

Go to horns, are of that type, we simply can do more of what we want and more convincingly and naturally with our go to horn.

I have a modern yamaha a very capable horn but there is something missing that I get with my goto that I cannot get with this yamaha or any other horn and that makes my goto the most satisfying instrument that I have and I play better on my go to than any other horn because of it.

It has taken me decades to find and now it is with me and I am forever in the debt of all who helped me find it and prepared me so that I could recognise it when I found it.

The dream becomes reality only when we have put enough work in and understand how to use it to its full potential.

I very much disagree with the idea of a mouthpiece transforming an instrument. We are creatures of habit and building new ones takes a long time - that is called "acclimation" and is the reason why my students get extended playing time with my collection of specialty mouthpieces - we need months to acclimate and then to discover that the first impressions were not the lasting ones is a big deal.

@kehaulani said in Tough Decision to make:

Good grief. Isn't the OP's question simply which of two horns to buy? You play them both and pick the one that plays and sounds the best and is well built.. If it's a tie, go with nostalgia or it's mystique to you.

It's not rocket science or polemics or pseudo creative writing 101.

If it were only this easy. There are so many reasons to buy a horn. I have 20+ and identify with each one. Every one has its use case. They all get played without having to make up stories about why.

That being said, we are creatures of habit and I am convinced that it takes months to really acclimate - then the sound and blow is considerably different than the first impression.

@administrator
My take on this is perhaps a bit unconventional, but I would insist that between those two horns, it does not matter. Regardless of which on you pick, there will always be something in the back of your mind questioning that choice.
That being said, I do not believe in a lot of this synergy blah. I do not believe that most musicians have a "well formed concept" that would guide them only to specific hardware (a claim that I make as a long time Monette trumpet owner). The musician that concentrates on the music, discovers whatever horn that they have in their hands in a special way. I do use my Monette C trumpet more than any other horn BUT I am not musically "limited" in the orchestra when I play my Selmer, Bach or any other horn. That does not mean that the Monette is not special to me, it only means that when I play, I have no dependencies, no questions in the back of my mind concerning hardware.

So, based on what you have posted, the Blackburn has appealed to you for many more years and the Yamaha discovery is new and has no specific "reasons" except hearsay. If you were my student, I would say play before you pay and would drive with you to wherever to make an informed decision with an extra set of ears that you could trust.

One thing is clear to me, I have many players that I admire and they cover just about every horn one could imagine. That means that the difference is them, not the hardware.

@trumpetb Thank you for the comments.
Before getting into any details, I do not have an audiophile bone in my whole body. My playback is from a musicians perspective totally free of audiophile artifacts like "pinpoint imaging", high resolution or any other copy/paste thing used by the audio press. Design goals were a natural soundstage representing about row 15 in my favorite concert hall, natural sense of space and size - singers mouths should not be portrayed with the same hugeness as a piano or string section. In addition, the integration between the drivers is something that I payed special attention to. The crossover points are not audible to anyone that has visited and spent any time listening.

What you can not see: The real bamboo wood floor is covering up a concrete slab to which it is directly attached (constrained layer). It does not show any resonances below 500 Hz. The sand filled woofer cabinet also does a remarkable job of destroying anything that would want to escape the closed box. The back of the speaker has two high quality castors to ease moving the speakers. The front of the cabinet has two legs with a ball bearing at the base to couple where the woofer has the most weight. This couples with the hard bamboo with a very small area.

Soundproofing is something that I have no interest in. None of the products that I have ever tested resulted in anything sonically worthy. The lumpy decay characteristics of a treated room may be OK with commercial close miked studio recordings that have no natural acoustics, but that is not what I seriously listen to. If I want freedom of room acoustics, I use my AKG 701 headphones.

Horn loudspeakers ARE used to limit crosstalk - in a very natural way, lowering distortion and amp power requirements. With about a 60° dispersion between 500 and 20K, side walls, floors and ceilings are adequately "out of the picture". The vertical woofer array also limits dispersion in that plane.

The Van den Hul wiring harness for the tone arm is twisted, but not too tightly. The SME 3009 II tonearm does not have a removable headshell.

Speaker cable voodoo is something that I refuse to comment on. My amplifiers are near the speakers and all of the speaker level interconnects are less than 12" long.

Interconnect artifacts are audible, but not in the audiophile sense. Low capacitance, resistance and excellent shielding are simple things easily accomplished. This also reflects what recording engineers have known for decades. The miles of microphone cables do not seem to have comprimised any of the recordings that I use as references. A squirt of WD40 on all of the RCA plugs keeps corrosion minimized without compromising the metal to metal contact.

The only real issue that I had was getting a phono preamp that had enough gain to match my digital devices. So with Tim DeParavicinis help, I modified the EAR 834P to get more gain. The results with the Ortofon Rohmann cartridge (predecessor to the Winfield) now are equal to the digital playback. The level of enjoyment is equal although I have no digital or analog releases that sound exactly the same - despite mastering work.

The focus is ONLY on my own personal enjoyment and this is done simply by identifying root negative artifacts and eliminating them (one by one over many years). There is not much left to do, although the playback is not perfect. The limiting factors (room size for instance) are not possibilities that I can do anything about.

There are laws about retaining data when membership expires. Most software gives the user(member) a choice of just leaving or removing all traces. If someone leaves mad, the chance of them caring about their footprint in this or any other forum is about zero. That is why we need positive interaction between us. Then if life determines that we have no time - or ambition, we remain a member but simply do not visit.

Now, banning does not delete an account. It just removes someones ability to post. I know of no admins that delete more than abusive posts.

@barliman2001 If I am not mistaken, the banned one here also got a vacation at TrumpetMaster for tthe same reason.

@ssmith1226 The solution for intonation is a combination of things: matching the mouthpiece backbore, leadpipe, mass at specific places and bracing.

For me, the first thing is the prepared body. Without a relaxed but straight posture, nothing else can be optimised. After that comes focus - removing distractions from the viewing field... and getting into the mood.
Then comes breathing/exhaling tones - my circle of breath. Once the juices are flowing all of the rest.

@mike-ansberry This is a HUGE topic. I built my own, horn loudspeakers and low powered tube amplification.

@ssmith1226 Yes, I did play one for a while. It was HORRIBLY out of tune. Had I known then what I know today, I would have been able to get that fixed. Still, It was a marching band instrument, not really something for blend in the orchestra.

@barliman2001 Thank you, but I want to be sure that everyone understands that I did not demand anything. I am more interested in the "root cause" of things. Maybe there is a good reason that I have not seen.
My thoughts are that on a site like this with limited active members, anything that reduces accessibility changes the way that we treat threads - further reducing eagerness to post.
I have seen other forums that occasionally bump threads to the top to get more "action". This is exactly the opposite.
I would be happy to know what the community thinks. Maybe I am just too old and grumpy.

@bob-pixley The Eb Ambassador A11E trumpet is in the 1978 pricelist:
http://rouses.net/trumpet/olds78/olds78price2.htm

The D slide was an additional $25.

I suspect that this was intended for marching band. I do remember some marching charts like El Cumbanchero with Eb parts.

The intonation issues are "solvable".

@barliman2001 I guess, I just disagree in principle with locking down non-abusive threads - regardless of age. I see no logic or necessity (your argumentation of cluttering simply does not apply in my view), but I guess I have never really felt "at home" here - at least not enough to start actively posting. I find this behavior of locking down unique to you and not standard at any other forums that I am a member of.

This issue is not enough to make me stop visiting, but it certainly was enough reason to address the issue. As I said, it is just one of the things here that I find unnecessarily "annoying".

Kehaulani, perhaps it does not matter but I felt a need to address what I feel is an admin looking for work instead of a valuable forum feature. I do understand that this was never policy. I know that Elmar is not doing this with malicious intent, but I have the impression that this is not something that anyone ever asked for.

I really do not spend much time here (there are various reasons), but when I do, I sometimes find very annoying things.

Today: Multiple threads were locked down "for obvious reasons" - but no obvious reasons were anywhere to be found. Could it be that the threads are cleansed and then locked down? If they are censured, what does the lock accomplish? If there is no indication as to why, how does the casual user even make sense of what goes and what does not. What is the motivation on locking threads down? Is there a policy governing this?

As I had an administrative function at TrumpetMaster, there was regularly an "urge" to lock down a thread not going anywhere. We (I) only did when the posting got really ugly. The ugly words were replaced with a clear note as to why. Sometimes the member got a vacation. Keeping threads open kept them alive. A bump after a year or two brought forgotten subjects back to life - even if the original poster was long gone.

I would appreciate a real reason when threads are locked down. I never appreciate completely deleting anyones posts - or intentions. Unsuitable language is easy enough to smooth out and publicly document.

I am not expecting or demanding an answer. I would consider a detailed why in the respective threads to be "courteous".

"Too many" is a term for ones opinion of someone elses collection.

There are performers that play various venues and need various horns, there are players with one venue but like to use various horns, there are collectors with a purpose and collectors without purpose. Then there are those with more money than common sense.

Add to that our own relationship and we see that number of horns is a very dynamic thing. What works this year can be different even after a month or two.

My collection (now 20 trumpets) has always been "right sized". I always had a performance reason (mostly for historically informed playing ensembles) to buy the next instrument, and today I am only missing one instrument - a rotary valved C-trumpet of my own design (not TARV). The covid pandemic got in the way of that one and I have learned some stuff in the mean time that changed the game.

Here is "another" collection. If you have an issue with 4 letter words, don't click this link. Miles was, well, Miles.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/54761.Miles_Davis

@curlydoc Wyntons classical recordings are relatively old. I remember the Hummel on a Schilke Eb and the Picc stuff also on a Schilke.
I think that if he were to make a current recording, he probably would get a made to purpose horn from Dave Monette.