Tubah!

Since I was freshmen in high school (almost 10 years ago), I have played tuba. In the picture below I'm seen holding a sousaphone during my last months in high school (wearing my band uniform to boot). The horn below is a Jupiter FiberBrass Sousaphone.

After high school I joined a local community band, they gave me a nice tuba play which you can see me playing in the picture below. It has it's issues just like every large tuba does. Of course at the time I wasn't used to playing such a cumbersome instrument. Up until then, I had used Bb tubas for about 6 years. I met my greatest challenge, playing this tuba. It's keyed in C, it takes twice the lung power compared to any tuba I've played thus far, and to make matters worse it's intonation was about as accurate a marksman shooting blind. With all these issues though I managed to overcome this beast. The one thing about this horn that I enjoy is that you can play loudly it will not over-blow easily. I have played this horn for little over 3 years now, but I wanted my own tuba to own. The horn below is a Melton 2155R 5/4 C Tuba, only around 20 of these were ever made.

In December of 2012, I gathered enough money to purchase an Eb Tuba. I had wanted something extremely versatile, because if I was to own only one tuba that horn had to be versatile. I read around on the internet for different opinions and the majority of tuba players had said the Eb was the best all-around-er tuba. It's a Besson 981 knockoff costing only around $2500 provided by a British company known as Wessex Tubas. Jonathon Hodgetts is the owner and he provides excellent custom service. He play tests every horn that comes from the factory in China, and if he doesn't like it he won't sell it. So far the tuba has been great, it has an excellent upper and middle register but the lower register can be kind of stuffy at times. The stuffy lower register is heavily in part due to the fact it is a compensating horn. That is to say that when you press the 4th valve, it's tubing loops back into the valve section. When you depress more valves to the depressed 4th valve, it adds more length to the 4th valve tubing according to which additional valves are depressed. If this system were not present on this horn, the lower register would be very difficult to navigate through because of bad intonation. With this system one could simply play a G on 1+2 and to go an octave lower, you would just add the 4th valve. 

Overall if you're not sure what tuba to purchase, try them if you're not sure. If the situation allows it, always try before you buy! Do not buy a horn you will not like later on down the road.