Wessex Excelsior

[Uncle Markie]

Does anyone on here have any experience with the Wessex Excelsior compact compensating BBb?

[Three Valves]

Compensating?? It does not appear compact.

Not I, no.

[2nd tenor]

Does anyone on here have any experience with the Wessex Excelsior compact compensating BBb?

As there hasn’t been a rush of answers I’ll offer some indirect experience.

The Brass Band that I play in is occasionally short of a Bass player and when that happens we normally call in a dep (Deputy) to fill that chair - our players similarly help out other Bands. One dep was a BBb playing Lady from a more skilled Band than ours, she’s a better player than me and, as best I can see, she used the instrument you enquire about. The lead pipe is distinctive and I remember liking the idea of having a water key and slide before the valve block; that arrangement is maybe not acoustically ideal but it’s easy to operate and traps some water before the valve block.

She (our dep) was pleased with the basic instrument, it sounded fine and she played it well. IIRC she was quite clear about how Wessex managed their supplier in terms of enhancement of their base offering and QA (all Jinboa products are not equal). She’s not the type of person that’s easily pleased so when her Tuba’s silver plate wasn’t as good as it should be she forced Wessex (no small feat) to replace the instrument, well that’s my recollection and, to be fair, I believe that her original instrument was a prototype. It’s a straw pole and maybe not indicative but if that skilled, informed and picky person was satisfied then I reckon that most other people will be too.

For the money new Jinboa made products appear to be pretty good value for money but I’m not so sure about their residual values, repairability and durability. If I were in the market for another Tuba then I’d (first) be looking towards investing in a secondhand instrument from a European or North American manufacturer. That’s my personal perspective, but I appreciate both that new is important to some people and that this Wessex will be a ‘best’ choice for some people. We’re all different, YMMV, etc.

I hope that the above is a help to someone.

[GC]

The Excelsior is wrapped tightly so it's not much larger than the Champion Eb, though it's several pounds heavier. It can definitely be called compact.

[bloke]

If the instrument that I worked on is that model, I recall noticing that it was factory franken-ed from an existing model...possibly (??) the Hirsbrunner 4/4 copy...

[Uncle Markie]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. The Deputy's story is interesting for sure.