TubaForum.net

Posted on Trumpet Herald:

Conn-Selmer. Inc., has filed an official layoff notice with state and local officials confirming it will permanently close its Eastlake brass instrument factory on June 30, 2026, eliminating all 150 jobs at the plant.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2026/04/ ... -good.html

Seemingly yet more jobs being taken from workers in the USA and given to folk in the far east where wages are real cheap. It might be a hard headed business decision or it might be a case of maximising profits with no thought for anything else … you decide. I do buy goods made in China, but what I really want to do is buy something that’s locally made. YMMV, but don’t complain later when your job is also outsourced to some cheaper overseas labour.

Translation: "Union greed and grift is killing yet another long lived, well known American business."

Gotta wonder if they asked the employees if they preferred unemployment to trying to be competitive?

And the UAW probably couldn't suck any harder . . . the same bozos that complained/defended/forced rehire of a guy who came to work stoned constantly getting fired. (And yes, my attitude *IS* showing.)

I spent a year between engineering schools working in a factory that made things basically like a machine shop. The way they kept the union out was to pay the same wages that the workers would get if the union came in. I thought that was a pretty good solution, because the workers didn't have to pay union dues and the business didn't have to worry about strikes. That said, there were workers there, just a few, who made sure as little work as possible came out, and I never understood what they were so angry about.

It’s obviously a poorly managed company. Y’all need to look at that ownership group. This looks like a job for Super Chicken….

It doesn't matter where it's made, if nobody likes it.

.

I spent years trying to find a tuba that played as well as the 2341 prototype I played in the late 90's in Eastlake. The early ones were good but at the time I was "above" buying a BBb tuba.

Then I got older, Smarter, started playing Eb tuba and realized the BBb was a better match for My Eb than the CC was. (in my opinion)

And then I found the tuba that reminded me of that prototype. The Eastman 534

Tofu,
Thank-you for a very insightful commentary! From a tuba standpoint, it seems that the glory days of American tuba manufacture was during the 1920's and particularly the 1930's. After WWII, there were some very good tubas made, but they were never quite the same, and company buyouts and other changes were well underway by the late 1950's. As you say, it is surprising that the Eastlake Plant stayed open as long as it did.

I am hoping to make several more of my 4/4 York-copy tubas, and know that, even at the price I'll charge for each, I'll be making little profit. They are mostly a labor of love.

I have to wonder how China will fare in the future in this business. Miraphone seems to be hanging in there. The last I heard, the Josef Lidl workers in Czechia are working 6 days a week to fill orders. I am very happy with the quality and pricepoint at which they can be offered. They seem to be
thriving at this point, and show obvious pride in their work.

I haven't played any of the Czech instruments lately.
Aren't there a bunch of them at a store in Columbus?
I pass through there every couple of years coming and going, but it's always around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. (When I have to pass through Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Columbus on the way to Pittsburgh, I try to do it when everyone in those cities is asleep.)

Buckeye Brass has Cerveny and Buddy Rogers/Willis has Lidl.

gocsick wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2026 9:58 am Buckeye Brass has Cerveny and Buddy Rogers/Willis has Lidl.

Thanks. Are those all made in the same place?

2nd tenor wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2026 4:56 pm Seemingly yet more jobs being taken from workers in the USA and given to folk in the far east where wages are real cheap. It might be a hard headed business decision or it might be a case of maximising profits with no thought for anything else … you decide. I do buy goods made in China, but what I really want to do is buy something that’s locally made. YMMV, but don’t complain later when your job is also outsourced to some cheaper overseas labour.

oh shut up already

dp wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2026 10:30 am

2nd tenor wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2026 4:56 pm Seemingly yet more jobs being taken from workers in the USA and given to folk in the far east where wages are real cheap. It might be a hard headed business decision or it might be a case of maximising profits with no thought for anything else … you decide. I do buy goods made in China, but what I really want to do is buy something that’s locally made. YMMV, but don’t complain later when your job is also outsourced to some cheaper overseas labour.

oh shut up already

I'm sure that all those who build instruments for the British firms, Wessex and JP, are Englishmen who formerly worked at the Boosey and Hawkes factory on Edgware Rd., but are being farmed out to China.

dp wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2026 10:30 am

2nd tenor wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2026 4:56 pm Seemingly yet more jobs being taken from workers in the USA and given to folk in the far east where wages are real cheap. It might be a hard headed business decision or it might be a case of maximising profits with no thought for anything else … you decide. I do buy goods made in China, but what I really want to do is buy something that’s locally made. YMMV, but don’t complain later when your job is also outsourced to some cheaper overseas labour.

oh shut up already

Geritol.

Here's something I heard Matt say: "The Eastman 534 actually did the things I told King they needed to do with the 2341." Or something very close to that.

I think Conn-Selmer has been cost-engineered for a long time in ways that, e.g., Miraphone has been able to balance against their quality model. Quality suffered as a result. It's not like this is the first time Conn has learned this lesson--the same thing happened under MacMillan when they moved the factory to Abilene, Texas to escape union labor and its associated costs. Turns out, they escaped union costs but also union-worker skill programs and quality went down. That essentially killed Conn-branded tubas until Allied started putting Conn on instruments made at the King factory in Eastlake.

Miraphone survives by branding themselves as a producer of first-world premium products, not first instruments for impecunious students. I think (without knowing) their hope is that by the time the student has stuck with it long enough for their Chinese budget tuba to have fallen apart, they will be more ready and able to afford a premium product. That strategy doesn't always work, of course, and Chinese budget tubas aren't what they used to be (nor are they the same budget proposition they used to be). But I think they are right to focus on the top 10% of the market instead of the bottom 50%, where they can't compete on price and still uphold their brand value. I doubt Conn-Selmer or any of its predecessor management companies have ever tried to build a strategy on that concept, and they tried to compete on price rather than quality. Consequently, they squandered their brand value. That is a theme that has repeated over and over with American industry as the management of companies was taken over by business-school grads from the technical people that founded the companies. Robert Townsend (noted management guru from a few decades back) once stated that he wanted to lead tours at the Harvard Business School, which would be abandoned and in ruins once American corporate boards stopped focusing on quarterly P&L reports. That fantasy has not come to pass, and I think that's a broad problem.

But I think that band programs are also suffering from the general cultural decline that is starving symphony orchestras of audiences and donations. Fewer kids going into band means fewer customers for band instruments, ultimately. I wonder if that problem is as acute in other countries where Miraphone would be competitive.

I have no idea if the current management suffered from the same issues that plagued their predecessors, and the decisions that led to this might predate the people now there. But I think it's clear little has been done to reinvigorate and support true brand value from C-S in a long time. That's why plants close.

Rick "self-inflicted wounds" Denney

Miraphone has also figured out how to machine-make FORMERLY hand-made parts with consistency actually going up, rather than down.

I sort liked the very best of the inconsistent just a bit more, but whatever on that.
-------------------
The late 1960s-era 186 C that "Doc" bought from me is just an amazing tuba. You can just sit there and play it, moving no slides - other than for two pitches - and everything is already centered with the slides left alone.

Of course, first valve D asks for the first slide to be pushed all the way in and double low D asks for the fifth slide to be pulled out, but that's it... and it sounds absolutely beautiful - which is why I was inspired to pimp it out with a super custom silver plated finish.

If someone is looking for the very best 186 C on the planet, they might reach out to Bill and ask him if he's interested in selling it...

Miraphone is also a worker owned coop or a Genossenschaft in Germany. Only employees can become shareholders... and it has a general assembly, supervisory board, and executive officers all elected from the employee shareholders by employees. Plus any major decisions such as mergers, acquisitions, and other critical fiscal decisions require approval by over 90% of member employees. So they are insulated from a lot of the pressure to maximize returns for investors that most companies face.

https://www.miraphone.de/company.html

This discussion reminds me of what I've read about the demise of the British motorcycle industry:
Post WWII, management refused to make any investment in the companies including even maintaining the machine tools. Workers made valiant attempts at compensating for wide variations in tolerances but I know from personal experience that new bikes had to be substantially reworked before delivery to customers. The same was true of Jaguar Cars. They were worth substantially more once converted to Chevrolet V8 engines and GM automatic transmissions. And when did you last see an Austin Mini that wasn't built by BMW.

The aristocratic company owners simply consolidated the companies into ever bigger conglomerations such as Manganese Bronze Holdings makers of Norton/Villiers/Triumph motorcycles and heaven knows what else. This continued until the last Norton was built in 1975. By then, Royal Enfield had been sold to Indians, BSA was no more and Triumph was the last man standing. The marques that that had tried to maintain quality; Matchless, Sunbeam, Brough Superior, HRD (Vincent) et. al, were long gone. All this in an expanding world market into which the Japanese sold countless thousands of motorcycles -- for far less money than the British ever could.

The music business in the US is certainly shrinking or perhaps consolidating into Taylor Swift Holdings and The Arts as we have known them are not supported much in the US. Yet touring groups such as Tine Helseth's all-brass Ten Thing sold out Seattle's Symphony Hall a year ago toward the end of a long tour, including many small venues such as Medford Oregon. They cannot do that and lose money. They have made several tours of the US so there is demand. Meanwhile our community orchestra struggles to get enough string players, yet the many jazz-oriented musicians struggle to get venues in which to play.

I believe The Arts are better supported outside the US but I don't know if that translates into sufficient market to keep multiple instrument makers alive, nor do I know what the world-wide sales of Far-East made brass instruments is but I suspect it's way higher than here in the US. But maybe not. So maybe the motorcycle analogy breaks down at that point and soon we all will be streaming TS Enterprises AI produced music on our iPhones.

The Arts are better supported outside the US

I would agree, if the adjective "fine" is placed in front of the word "arts", but only via coercion (taxation).

Were individual Europeans free to - as individuals or individual groups - choose to support or not support the "fine" arts (with no coerced taxation subsidies) I feel confident that many (just as in the US) would choose to NOT do so.

Google tells me that Berlin Phil ticket prices range from c. €39 - €111 or from c. €49 - €156, depending on how highfalutin the particular concert.

Google also tells me that Philly Orch ticket prices range from c. $47 to over $100.

With all of that additional subsidization (compared to the US, whereby the NEA in the US - with orchestras as an example - are only federally subsidized by - on average - 3-1/2%), why are top European orchestra concert tickets still so expensive?