I‘m playing yellow brass handslides on my Thein bass trombone since I have it. I had the opportunity to play a gold brass handslide on an other bass trombone recently and I was astonished how good the sound was.

Does anybody know how the material of the handslide effects the sound or timbre of a horn?

I really like my gold brass handslides… though I usually attribute my preference for them to the greater weight of the slides in general (old Bachs with equal length oversleeves).

Back to your point, for many years I did not think much of different slide tube material, except that I hated lightweight varieties. Then just a while ago I had the opportunity to play on a couple of Benn H’s slides and one of them is an absolutely magical gold brass tubed large bore tenor slide-think it was a Shires slide. I don’t know that I have an intelligent opinion of what or why; but it opened my eyes to the possibility of this mattering a heck of a lot more than I had thought previously.

Cheers,

Andy

Of course there's always the difference between "real" Bach gold brass (80/20) and the rose brass used by everyone else at 85/15. But moving on:

I somehow have several rose outer slides at the moment. I find they add some bloom to the sound, some warmth, usually at the price of a bit slower response. To combat that, most of them also have a nickel crook for a bit of balance. They're a good way to balance out a bell section that might be a bit "hot." They're also a good way to make a darker or less focused bell section much, much worse.

Too many factors to give a precise answer to this question.. I personally like heavy yellow or gold or lightweight Nickel tubes (for some strange unknown reason).. When it comes to crook material I prefer yellow or gold when the bell has a soldered rim and a nickel crook when the bell has an unsoldered rim. It's all about matching... Others may choose other solutions of course!

In the past, I don’t think I would ever choose a gold handslide, but I was very impressed with the Shires Alessi Q series horn that has a gold brass slide, although it’s obviously just one part of why that design works.