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- first slide moves as well as the first slide on a Schilke trumpet
- pistons are extremely well-fit, well-ported, and beautifully-surfaced stainless steel pistons
- water keys are nickel silver
- case (albeit heavier) is far sturdier

The other maker's competitive edges are
- exposure/advertising/promotion
- band directors' suspicion that something couldn't possibly be better, yet cost half as much

#3 child has my BigLabel baritone, and we had an upcoming June gig that precipitated a replacement safari.

My employer provides a "lifestyle wellbeing" expense account, so after briefly scouring the used market, I took a flyer on the BigLabel clone.
FAR better player than my real-deal version - esp. scale consistency & high range stability & playability, but just overall better blow.

* that should be a hard stop, right there, but also *

Well machined and assembled
Better valves
Beautifully finished
Very nice case (preferable to the ungainly, BigLabel clunker)
(unimportant, but interesting to me: Remarkably true clone, even down to the valve caps and buttons - ferrules, braces, whole thing looks and feels like BigLabel)

My overall outlay (brand new) was under $600 (had already tapped my expense account, else it'd have been less), but even at full cost, I'd be very pleased with this purchase.
Funny coincidence of timing re your post, Bloke. We'd skipped the June gig, so I had finally set it out last night for its initial flush of the vestigial mfg debris later today.

Domestic (American manufacturer{s} rely on a reputation that was established a century ago, yet the quality that developed that reputation has been gradually abandoned, beginning in the 1970's.

The Japanese began establishing their reputation in the 1970's, with good-fitting parts and low prices...which have become (quite a few of the models) not-Japanese builds, "pretty good" quality, and super-high pricing. ("After all, we're _ _ _ _ _ _.")

Again... (reviewing...I've pointed all of this out before)
JP has a healthy mark-up between the factory price they pay and the price they charge me. I've tried buying around them (for a lower price, even though JP pays less than I can, due to epic quantity). The thing is that JP has established a quality standard with that factory, and I can't get the JP established quality when I buy "around" them. Still, being able to sell a King-like sousaphone with a complete knock-off (butterfly latches et al) of the Conn-Selmer version of the MTS case included, shipping to my customer included, for considerably less than half the online-advertised price of King (perhaps half of a school bid price), and with much better valvesets (quite-cylindrical close-fitting pistons/stainless steel pistons) and (even) nickel-brass slide tubes and nickel-brass bell connection male/female parts...that's pretty good.

...and the way that the American manufacturers have been behaving (parts? enough employees? huh?) makes me wonder if they plan to continue on.

sidebar: I've been selling more JP instruments that usual, because (not known/verified, but told to me by others) the Japan production schedules (even were it that their quality of the instruments mostly sold to schools equaled that of JP) have (again: third-hand information) reached out way over a year.

This summer (as more band directors "auto-choose" to buy Japanese woodwinds to replace old Vito/Bundy, etc. - which they > wrongly < judged to be "worn out"), Mrs. bloke has had to resort to CUTTING OUT screw-rods on Japanese-brand piccolos, harmony clarinets, and (Malaysia-made) soprano clarinets (absolutely hopelessly frozen) and you might guess that (after 45 years of this mess, dozens of techniques/tricks known for freeing screw-rods, and extremely well-defined forearm musculature - ie. STRONG hands) if ANYONE can get screw-rods freed, it would be Mrs. bloke. Additionally, the cases are (sort-of) disposable quality...bass clarinet and other Japanese-brand thin-plastic cases now feature (yup) plastic hinges.

If (mostly) all we have to choose from are USA-branded Chinese instruments, Japan-branded Chinese (and Malaysian) instruments, and more-recently-established-brands Chinese instruments...
...WHY NOT buy the really well-made Chinese instruments that cost half or considerably less than half-as-much?
I realize that government doesn't give a damn how much things cost. The federal gov't heavily subsidizes local schools, and the federal government has the infinite power to print and borrow money...but (well...) we serfs don't have those powers, and we are the ones to get taxed to pay for this equipment.

me...?? It seems to me that we (even though - yes - many repair people are "hacks", and the best of them are overwhelmed) should probably continue to REPAIR older instruments. A USA-made Blessing marching baritone (with Bauerfend valvesets) is going to play JUST as well with a properly-repaired-and-sleeved (reinforced) mouthpipe as it did when it was new. OK..."ugly finish"...?? NEW instruments soon (in three or four years) look like the 30-year-old instruments, and are handled JUST as carelessly.

I am quite happy with the JP Bloke sold me. I've only played it a few hours (physical problems being remedied with surgery soooon but can't really hold up tuba or have it sit on a stand without pain- rotator cuff) but I am pleased with the condition it came from the factory. It came direct from the JP warehouse, in a box shrink wrapped to a pallet at a freight terminal, and I was a little leery because I've always heard that a dealer needs to examine and tune up a new horn before it is delivered to a customer. I've heard stories hear about the condition of new instruments supplied to dealers by The Borg and was wondering what problems there might be because it wasn't examined by a dealer. The only thing I needed to do was lube the rotors and linkage. There was lube and an instruction leaflet about what and how to lube the horn. In a purple velvet bag.

I have *no* complaints. (BTW: JP 379B 3/4 BBb)

THIS THREAD LOOKS LIKE A BIG AD FOR JP.

EASTMAN STUFF IS NEARLY AS WELL-BUILT (OK...NOT QUITE, AND THEY WOULD DISAGREE) AND OFFERS A FEW MORE DIFFERENT SHAPES/SIZES TUBAS...
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The point that I'm trying to make (more than carnival-barking my brand) is that - often - government employees are often a bit too careless and self-important spending money that is not their personal money.

"I'm too busy to figure out whether there might be a $1000 marching baritone built better and with a better case than the $2000 ones, so I'll just order eight of the $2000 ones." (etc.)

bloke wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 12:28 pm THIS THREAD LOOKS LIKE A BIG AD FOR JP.

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The point that I'm trying to make (more than carnival-barking my brand) is that - often - government employees are often a bit too careless and self-important spending money that is not their personal money.

Common expression in 1980's corporate was "no one gets fired for going with Big Blue". I.e. name brand (IBM in this example) is a LOT more expensive, but going with the herd is easily defensible, if it even gets questioned (probably not).

BTW, didn't want to steal your thunder so I hadn't mentioned it, but I think it's relevant that my horn is not a JP, and it's still a far better value imo than the equivalent default name brand that folks feel safe buying. That is to say, there's other options, but if someone's spending other-people's-money, how do we incent them to risk not going with Big Blue (or the Tried n True Tuning Forks in this case)?