An Eastman Experience

[sirisobhakya]

Yesterday I went to a school band competition, and without my prior knowledge, there were many horn shops opening promotion booths there with an opportunity to test play, which is quite rare for a non-band country like mine. I love comparing horns, so I jumped at the chance. There were Bach 36B, 42B, BO and AF, some other Chinese makes (Emperor or Melody or something), and Eastman. I tested 2 of their horns, the 848 double rotor bass and the 829 Thayer-valved tenorbass. I hope this review is useful, if only a little, to anyone.

For both horns, the slide impressed me the most, especially after I tried a less-than-mediocre slide of another Chinese horn. They were 10/10, smooth all the way through, and light and fast. Actually it was the reason I decided to test-play the horn in the first place. Build quality is good according to basic inspection: tuning slides fit and smooth, no lacquer blemish, weld points clean and neat, valve properly lapped and assembled. They have Shire-style braces (you don’t say...) and interchangeable leadpipe.

Sound-wise, for the bass, I compared it (not side-by-side but around 1 hour apart) against my own Yamaha YBL-830 and my former school’s newly refurbished Bach 50B3L. I was surprised that the Eastman has the most “euphonium-ish” sound, even though I used a mouthpiece provided by the shop, which was around 4G or 3G-ish, both smaller and shallower than my Doulas Yeo Replica. The sound is darker, but with much less core than the Bach (which is, in turn, darker than the 830, but somewhat “duller” as well). Maybe that is someone’s cup of tea but not quite mine. There is more resistance down the trigger register and I could not pop the low C and lower notes out with ease, but maybe that is also due to the mouthpiece. Leadpipe swap may also help. The intonation was good, but cannot say much about slotting since the mouthpiece was different. The price is 129,000 Thai Baht, comparing to around 200,000 Baht of the 830 (cannot convert into exact Dollar because I am not sure about the tax rate, maybe 17% if I remembered it correctly).

About the tenorbass, it was my first time with Thayer (I have only tried traditional rotor, CL and Hagmann before). The F-side is more free-blowing that my 830 (obviously), even quite more free-blowing than the open side (WHY?) but to be honest I don’t notice “that” much difference. Maybe I am too insensitive, or you need bass to feel the effect more. It didn’t make impact on me like when I first tried CL valve two years ago, but that time it was tested side-by-side with the 830.

To sum up, they are good horns for their price point, even broadly comparable to Bachs and Yamaha. Shire does good QC on the Chinese factory. I would not trade my 830 for them both, but I would recommend it to someone who is looking for a cheaper horn, definitely over other funny-sounding Chinese brands flooding the instrument market in my country right now.

[ghmerrill]

There is more resistance down the trigger register and I could not pop the low C and lower notes out with ease, but maybe that is also due to the mouthpiece. Leadpipe swap may also help.

If you usually play on a Yeo replica and were now pushing air through this horn with something like a 3G, I'd certainly expect some difference in how the double trigger notes would "pop"!

That being said, any problems I was having with the response of those pitches on my 7B clone have been quite adequately addressed with a leadpipe improvement and a mouthpiece/rim choice. From the "stock" horn, the difference is remarkable, and I'd expect similar with something like the Eastman as well.

I'd also be curious to see what the quality of the valves in these various clones looks like -- by which I mean, disassembling them and looking at things like the joints and soldering and edges on the inside. My Gb valve has a really inferior join and solder job on one of the knuckles (not visible form the exterior). It leaves a gap between a couple of the edges that probably affects the downstream airflow out of the valve. But I'm not interested in trying to fix it, since the horn now plays fine the way I have it set up, and getting all excited about that on a horn whose original cost was about $550 seems just plain silly.

[sirisobhakya]

There is more resistance down the trigger register and I could not pop the low C and lower notes out with ease, but maybe that is also due to the mouthpiece. Leadpipe swap may also help.

If you usually play on a Yeo replica and were now pushing air through this horn with something like a 3G, I'd certainly expect some difference in how the double trigger notes would "pop"!

That being said, any problems I was having with the response of those pitches on my 7B clone have been quite adequately addressed with a leadpipe improvement and a mouthpiece/rim choice. From the "stock" horn, the difference is remarkable, and I'd expect similar with something like the Eastman as well.

I use 3G from time to time as well. But it is as a cheater mouthpiece for high notes. I shall try my horn with the 3G (and also 51C4 and 51B) again when I have a chance, maybe on Thursday, and shall report again. I hope I still haven't forgotten how the Eastman blow at that time.

I'd also be curious to see what the quality of the valves in these various clones looks like -- by which I mean, disassembling them and looking at things like the joints and soldering and edges on the inside. My Gb valve has a really inferior join and solder job on one of the knuckles (not visible form the exterior). It leaves a gap between a couple of the edges that probably affects the downstream airflow out of the valve. But I'm not interested in trying to fix it, since the horn now plays fine the way I have it set up, and getting all excited about that on a horn whose original cost was about $550 seems just plain silly.

I would be too. For Eastman not so much, but for other Chinese instruments without collaboration from reputable brands. Or to be honest, even those collaborated (or subcontracted) with reputable brands also suffer sometimes. I once tried cheap student Bachs (TB500 or something like that) manufactured in Taiwan (or maybe China, can't remember it exactly), and they were extremely inconsistent; from 6 horns, 2 played good, 2 not so, and the last 2 were abysmal, played like there was some socks stuffed into it. And the horn also has design flaw which makes the rotor linkage acts like an over-center linkage and gets stuck once the stopper rubber wear past as little as 95% size. Last month I fixed it for the kid who own the horn, and last week the linkage got stuck again.

I am also curious about how well they would hold up. But it is difficult to gather the information here since not many professional musicians in Thailand want to buy these horns (even though Thailand's salary base is much lower than those of the US and Europe), and also there are not many professional musicians to begin with.