I am a trumpet player, who doodled a bit on his brother's baritone in high-school (50 years ago), and want to play in Merry Tuba Christmas this year. I have a .500 bore bass trumpet (which I love, and can play high and long on a 12E) and played a run-through of the MTC music with some other lower brass players a few weeks back.

After testing a few euphs and a larger bore baritone I knew I needed something small, like a 3/4 student horn similar to my bass trumpet, as I would not be able to build up proper chops for something bigger in a short time.

So I bought the Thomann BR801GP+ (.503 bore), it was the only one that had no negative reviews. It isn't billed as a 3/4 size but I think for all practical purposes that's what it is.

I knew the thomann things were chinese, but was hoping a big reputable company like thomann would hold them to high quality standards, and was willing to pay a price for that. I've seen great stuff come out of China over the years, along with some pretty dodgy stuff too. So I took the plunge, paid the high (yikes) tarriff.

The horn is better than expected, build quality is quite good. It's obviously designed as a student horn, it has dent protectors in the right places. The valves were beautiful, machined perfectly. And it's small, I've held 3/4 size horns and this seems like the same size as them.

No idea on longevity, time will tell, but it has a beautiful shine, and all the valves and slides fit very well, so that's a good start.

It's a bit heavy, makes sense given the dent protectors, 3+1 valves, and a thumb trigger (in lieu of compensation) to temporarily push out the tuning slide. As a trumpet player I am pretty used to triggers so that works for me.

It is more open blowing than my bass trumpet, but only by a smidge. That was a bit scary at first, as it was slightly range and endurance limiting, but I was able to get used to it pretty quickly, so I got what I was looking for. It has a beautiful if somewhat compact tone, which suits me fine.

I can get more tone out of it on a 6 1/2 AL, and reach up pretty high almost like an alto horn on my 12E. So I'm pretty happy with it.

Now for the cool part. My brass quintet opened for one of the MTC's last year, and I was impressed enough I knew I wanted to do it the following year. Been practicing on my bass trumpet to build a little bit of chops, and now on the baritone to build a bit more. I just found out we will be opening for them again this year too. So I got two performances that night, one on trumpet, and another on baritone. That will be a first for me.

Well my Merry Tuba Christmas concert came and went, but somehow I am not able to post on this forum yet, don't know why. Concert was great though, played in our brass quintet too. We opened for the MTC in that town again, was a great time had by all. We had some really first rate tuba players show up too. They actually made stuff on the walls shake on one piece, was quite funny. Move over electric bass guys, the tubas are coming. :-)

Got a few compliments on the Thomann baritone too. It is a bright silver and gold (actual gold plating) that practically glows in the dark. Some people came with Christmas lights attached to their horns so they outshone me. :-) I gotta get something like that for next year.

My embouchure is still weak, we'll see if in a year I can't train up a bit. Looking forward to next year.