I have a Gibson rb250 banjo with a huber tone ring in.....and I've had lots of other good banjos...but this huber tone ring sounds very sweet...its the best sound I've ever had...I would never sell this banjo...10 out of 10....
Back in 2000 I wanted to make and inlay a Banjo. I used the Huber vintage gold plated tone ring (PA#11-H3G). And it was the right decision as it sounds great.
Dr. Jim Rae, inventor of the HR 30 banjo tone ring, gave me a banjo with the HR 30 tone ring and it sounds good, but I also like other banjos. My favorite is one I put together myself from parts. It isn't as metallic sounding as most banjos. Earl said the new banjos are good too. Mostly I can't identify banjos by the sound, but the Stellings sound great to me.
I have a Huber Lancaster my dad gave me that he bought about 15 years ago and it's my all time favorite banjo. Sounds 100 times better than my old Gibson RB-250.
I have a Huber with the HR30 tone ring. These are awesome banjos...too bad I can't say the same for their customer service. But again these banjos play and sound great. Just a bit of advice though - from my experience with Huber Banjo when it comes to the finish...don't expect a lifetime warranty.
Good morning Mr. Zinc I have what I believe it is the VRB4 I've had it for a few years and they do sound great but I had issues with the finish and Huber refused to take care of the problem. My banjo has a maple speed neck and a Burl walnut resonator with the Vintage tone ring - and like I said it sounds really good but it's just so annoying that they would not take care of minor finish problems.
My banjo has an HR30 tone ring and it sounds good, but I like a good Stelling or a Deering just as well. Jim Rae, the designer of the HR30 ring gave me a banjo. I like it, but he says not all pre-war banjos sound that great. I have played a few Martin guitars that weren't that good either.
Rae and many others have told me similarly. Any careful, critical listener--especially someone who can listen to a lot of prewars--will begin discovering this. Most prewars were not created equal, to some degree on purpose...there's a reason Earl liked the Granada more, haha.
@@TheTalemaster Jim Rae told me they had a meeting where several pre war banjos were tested. He said there were some really great but most were not. I read somewhere that Eric Weisberg's banjo started out as an archtop guitar but he had a flathead tone ring installed probably without cutting the rim. Some who have played said it was a very powerful banjo. Personally, I like the sounds of a lot of banjos. I like some variety.
@@merlynschutterle7242 Yeah, they selected rims and rings from what they dubbed the best examples for unspecified reasons. On the Huber website or used to be. It's an under-reported and rather unspoken fact that most prewars are not that good; I think part of the reason for this misinformation/lack of transparency in the market has to do with a lot of dissatisfied, hopeful players owning most of the mediocre 1s, 11s, etc sub-Mastertones. Wanting these models to be like the big-dollar banjos, they talk them up and inadvertently saturate the market with a lot of misinformation. I know a guy who tried the only RB4 no-hole ever made, and he literally said his RB1 with a cut rim and 20-hole Huber conversion ring sounded the same. Truth cannot get transmitted when people talk in these deceptive ways.
That was Charles Osgood, from the CBS Sunday Morning show. He is a musician, banjo player and enthusiast, and was taking lessons in NYC from Tony Trischka back in the late 80's to my knowledge. Not sure why they didn't credit him on this though...
Pre-war? What are they talking about, the Korean war? Seems odd to carry-on about how traditional a banjo sounds while everybody tries to emulate the way the same guy from the late 1940s played. If anything, "traditional banjo" describes the previous 150 years of the instrument. Bluegrass is its own thing, and that's fine, but it ain't traditional music. I mean maybe in it's own right but it ain't American traditional music.
