I have a Courtois 420BEST (The old Challenger II Bach copy). with the sterling bell that is hand hammered. It just sings compared to yellow brass for me. Love the sound of sterling, but I've never heard or played on the Bach electroplated bell. Can't wait to hear it!
Thank you for this video. Great discussion. I own a Bach Stradivarious BT but I am not at the level of music knowledge that I can compare with my other BTs that I own such as the Kanstul, Getzen or other older ones. I used to play Baritone Horn in JrHS and HS and it is still my sentimental favorite but after discovering the BT decades later, I fell in love with the BT. The BT, being my favorite brass instrument, I appreciate you providing a discussion. Thank you so much. Please keep them coming. I hope that the BT will become more and more popular as time goes on. As an aside, I am a bit confused with the bell. What is the application for the bell? THX again!
Whoa I would love to try a silver 42. Love my Silversonic 3B, it has a big warm sound despite being a small bore, I'd imagine it would have a similar effect with a large bore, but I wonder if it would be more or less noticeable.
I'm curious about the bell composition if they are indeed electroformed. Alloy plating and electroforming does exist, but depositing pure metals from both processes is done a lot more, and is much more straightforward. It's a low priority for me as an amateur who doesn't even play a lot of large tenor, but I've always thought it would be cool to try a silver bell on a large tenor.
Bach advertised them as "Sterling Plus", but they are in fact 0.999 silver, where sterling silver is a 92.5% Ag/7.5% Cu alloy. The "Plus" in Sterling Plus is the extra 7.4+% Ag. There are a handful of actual sterling silver Bach bells from the 1960s/70s, before Bach started having Anderson electroform bells for them. These bells were formed from sheet silver and spun just like a normal Strad brass bell was. They are stamped "STERLING SILVER" (or maybe it's just "STERLING", I forget) below the Corporation mark.
@@AidanRitchie I've seen one in the flesh (an early Elkhart 16). Noah Gladstone had a Sterling belled 36. I've never seen a sterling trumpet bell--the trumpet players I knew who liked silver bells played Kings...and it was frequently their cornet that had a silver bell and the trumpets were brass of some description. BTW, if you want to sell that silver bell with the Shires hardware on it I'd like to know about it.