High-end tuba makers are just too stodgy & don't get how to market their long established models to new customers:

[bloke]

Fender totally gets it, and they get people to buy second and third versions of the same old models of their bass guitars simply by issuing them in wild new colors.

[hrender]

[MShores]

They did it with their guitars. How about a Cafe Racer Yamayork?

[arpthark]

[bloke]

low end

[bloke]

Also, tuba manufacturers (though some have already succeeded at this) should go for really ugly body designs.
That's something else that bass guitar manufacturers do - really really stupid body and headstock shapes, along with dumb-dumb-dumb looking pick guards.

[AggieDan]

The irony of all that is that the referenced low end Cool Wind tuba still costs more than your average Fender Stratocaster.

[bloke]

The irony of all that is that the referenced low end Cool Wind tuba still costs more than your average Fender Stratocaster.

So far, none of those have cost me anything, and I doubt that they ever will.

The cheapest Fender Squier (Chinese) "Affinity" bass guitars ($400 - new price - for the enhanced five string version of this entry-level model) are darn nice, particularly after they're set up properly. Unlike $40,000 tubas, they play in tune quite well, without much coaxing at all:
(Keep them outfitted with a reasonably fresh set of strings, and don't get carried away in regards to how hard they are struck).
It's also really easy to produce a double low B natural on them, as well as a double high C. Give a bass player a minute to go home and fetch their largest big black box thing, and they can drown out any tuba. (The Mahler 1 tuba part is easy-schmeazy on a 4-string bass guitar, compared to any tuba.)

[MikeS]

Fender totally gets it, and they get people to buy second and third versions of the same old models of their bass guitars simply by issuing them in wild new colors.

They even charge extra for dinging them up at the factory. Half an hour with some sandpaper, a blowtorch, and a ball peen hammer and you could charge an extra grand for a Road Worn(tm) Miraphone.

[MartinMan]

Fender totally gets it, and they get people to buy second and third versions of the same old models of their bass guitars simply by issuing them in wild new colors.

They even charge extra for dinging them up at the factory. Half an hour with some sandpaper, a blowtorch, and a ball peen hammer and you could charge an extra grand for a Road Worn(tm) Miraphone.

I've actually legitimately wondered why some brass makers haven't tried something comparable to "reliced" guitars. While I personally don't get the appeal, the amount of them sold proves that there's a market, and there is a certain cool factor about the way lacquer ages over time.

I love the darkened lacquer look on my horns from the 20s and 30s, and while I don't think I wouldn't pay a premium to have it applied to a new instrument, I think some people would.

I also see a lot of (mostly in the trumpet world) high-end custom builds with very out-there acid finishes and such. (I believe Mike Del Quadro refers to it as his "F-it finish") Where reactive chemicals are poured all over the brass to get it to turn all sorts of tie-dye esque colors. It would be interesting to see that applied to larger brass. I'm reminded of Pat Sheridan's orange and blue gradient lacquered tuba.

I guess it makes more sense for smaller brass like trumpets where gimmicky finishes represent less of a risk from a cost perspective. Tubas are already so expensive to make that most makers probably want to go with a finish with as broad of a conventional appeal as possible to ensure that it sells.

One thing I do want to see from brass makers however is the concept of a Vintage Reissue. Fender, Gibson and the like realized that their newer off the rack stuff was not made nearly as well as the 50s and 60s stuff, and opened up the custom shop to make small limited runs of classic models built exactly to vintage spec. Again, not cost effective for low brass, but the idea of a small team of craftsman "making 'em like they used to" sounds nice to me. The only issue is that it only works for guitars because the vintage market in that world is so strong that the prices are astronomical in nature. Not so in the brass world. For the crazy price it'd take to make a horn to vintage standards, you could buy the real deal several times over.

[bloke]

I bought my '72 Jazz bass in 1979 as the third owner, but it still looked new.
I doesn't look new now, but not very beat-up. Being black, I touched up nicks with gloss black "Hard as Nails".

When they're all beat-up like that OR made to look all beat up, my mind imagines hums, crackly pots, and nasty bar-cigarette smell and a coating of bar-smoke filth (whether there or not).

back to tubas:
Claiming that "un-lacquered" (new) makes a tuba sound better...(and charging extra for it)...That seems like a great con.

[MartinMan]

back to tubas:
Claiming that "un-lacquered" (new) makes a tuba sound better...(and charging extra for it)...That seems like a great con.

So many claims about this finish vs. that finish or this alloy vs. that alloy are largely based on marketing exaggerations and the placebo effect IMO.

Does silver plating play "brighter", does a brass with higher copper content play "warmer", or are we just listening with our eyes?

Does utilizing different materials result in differences in sound? (Technically) Yes. Is it enough of a difference to be noticably perceived by either the player or audience alike in a blind study type setting? I doubt it.

At the end of the day, the choice between one finish or another is merely an aesthetic decision and each has their merits and downfalls. I've got one tuba with raw brass, one with lacquer, one with lacquer with bare patches, and one in satin silver. I picked each one because I liked how they played and they each just happened to have that finish/condition when I got them.

I do think it's especially funny when electric guitarists and bassists talk about the differences in "tone woods" as if the tone of the instrument were not nearly entirely dependent on magnetic pickups and tone capacitors. Again, does the wood technically impact the sound on some level? Sure. How much though does it actually matter though? I'm sure it's less than the boutique makers with their exotic woods would like the consumer to believe.

[bloke]

Yeah.
Of course what about to tell you that I've observed below isn't any sort of 100% correlation, but...
As a repair guy, I've sort of noticed that the best players know the least technical mumbo jumbo about their instruments and have made the fewest alterations to them..

I found some Kluson-style cloverleaf style tuners that fit on a five in a row headstock (the configuration of which is encountered on some Fender instruments, but not very many).

The typical ones have a huge plate on the back which limits how close together they can be configured, with the fifth one - then - always stuck on the wrong side looking kind of dumb.

I found some with a very small footprint on the back whereas my five in a row holes are more than 1.6 inches apart, I can swap out the stock butterfly tuners for the style that screams "Fender".
I don't know if I'll eventually buy those or not. IF I do, it will be for absolutely no other reason other than looks.
(That said, a lot of people here with their eyes.)

If anyone is curious see where I found them, here they are:
(I wouldn't rate them as "bargain priced"...)

On my bass, these would avoid articulating against each other by about 1/2 of a millimeter (based on the cloverleaf width and the hole spacing), but a miss is a miss.

https://a.co/d/0390NemV

[prodigal]

Fender totally gets it, and they get people to buy second and third versions of the same old models of their bass guitars simply by issuing them in wild new colors.

They even charge extra for dinging them up at the factory. Half an hour with some sandpaper, a blowtorch, and a ball peen hammer and you could charge an extra grand for a Road Worn(tm) Miraphone.

I could charge $30k for mine, then!

[bloke]

Stepping away from sarcasm (though sarcasm is tons of fun), I sort of valued my (real, not reissue) 72 Jazz bass as worth $D000.00
Since then I've found that mine and Geddy Lee's are both from the same year, same color, and (even) the same color pickguard...
They have "reissued" the "72 Geddy Lee Jazz bass"...so my ORIGINAL '72 (due to that tie-in) is probably worth (rather than $D000.00) more like $F000.00.

(still...cheaper than a ho-hum/good-enough Chinese tuba.)