Has eastman stepped up their game?

[Elow]

We just got a shipment in from eastman, so i get to spend my day testing horns and lubing them up. No shires this time I was really impressed with all of the ETB430Gs, which is pretty much a copy of the yamaha 448G. For a while i’ve been telling people to just pay the $500-600 extra and get a yamaha, but now, i think they’re actually a pretty good horn for the price. They also come in a MUCH nicer case. Resembles the Q series style case, but cheaper. The horn is built pretty well, which i would not have said a couple months ago. There about a 1 in 5 chance of a dud, we just got 7 and there were two that were meh. But the others were pretty good. I’ll try to make a video comparing it to a Q series that we have, maybe the alessi. Overall, i think it’s a pretty good horn for $1700 new.

[EOlson9]

The music store I work at has a couple of ETB-428's and a couple of ETR-520GS's and they are great horns. Our shop has had to do next to no work to get them ready to go.

[Elow]

The music store I work at has a couple of ETB-428's and a couple of ETR-520GS's and they are great horns. Our shop has had to do next to no work to get them ready to go.

You must have pleased the gods, because that is not my experience. There’s normally some black gunk at the bottom of the tuning slides and so i need to clean it and re lubricate it. Sure, it’s ready to go and be played, but i wouldn’t want to buy a new horn with factory gunk still in it.

[Hobart]

Might just be personal preference, but I honestly haven't heard many good things about Eastman as of late.
My brother's going into music education, and all of the student french horns and tubas were Eastman. If you let em sit, the valves stick way easier than any other student grade instrument. He was doing inventory for a while and it was a rather common problem, even out of the box new.
Earlier french horns had some issues sorted out though because the french horn professor chewed them out at Midwest Clinic, because the trigger side played a quarter step sharper than the non-trigger side and the tuning slide wasn't long enough to get it in tune.

Eastman may have stepped up their game, but I honestly don't really like em. They have a long way to go before becoming the next Yamaha, IMO.

[EOlson9]

We've also had a few Eastman step up tubas and euphs in the last few months that have gone out. I'm not 100% sure of the models of euphs off hand, but one of the tubas was an EBB-562 and I got to play that thing. It felt great, as do the EBB-623 and EBB-534 we have on hand right now.

[Elow]

Yeah, i actually really like their tubas. Solid horns. If you take care of them, there should be no problem with seizing valves. Their compensating euphs are trash. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. They’re like 3 grand and play worse than any chinese horn i have ever played. The eastman euphonium line needs some serious help.

[EOlson9]

We carry the EEP-321's in our rental fleet and they hold up pretty well. I looked up the euphs we sold and they were non-compensating. I didn't get a chance to play those. I'm eyeing an EBB-226 for myself at some point as an upgrade to my Besson 3v 3/4 tuba.

[greenbean]

I am playing on a new Eastman 534 tuba. It very, very good. Valves and slides all work beautifully, valves are vented, and it came with an excellent Pickett-made mouthpiece.

[Elow]

The medium bore 4 valve euphonium’s are a blast to play, but the compensating horns are just no bueno.