Thomann FH 600 G Bb-Flugelhorn

Ik heb deze bugel nu twee maanden en ben er zeer tevreden over. De bouwkwaliteit is niet top, maar zeker voldoende. De ventielen lopen perfect. Aanvankelijk dien je ze wel wat vaker te reinigen (ivm inslijten ventielen). Als je ze goed geolied houdt lopen ze perfect, geen probleem mee gehad. De klank is mooi en het geluid mengt goed in mijn harmonieorkest. De bugel stemt goed in alle registers, maar zoals met meer blaasinstrumenten is luisteren naar wat je aan klank produceert belangrijk om met je lippen bij te kunnen sturen. Geen intonatie problemen gehad. Als je bugel wil spelen voor weinig investering een absolute aanrader.

I am a french horn player but I wanted a flugelhorn for doubling in a piece our orchestra (The Cambridge Concert Orchestra) is playing in an up-comimng concert and also for helping out in a local brass band. Obviously I did not want to pay a lot of money for an instrument that is only going to get occasional use but at the same time, I wanted a good instrument. This flugel, judging by the reviews already left, seemed to fit the bill. I had a bit of a wait as it was out of stock when I ordered but it was well worth the wait! The instrument worked well straight out of the box and has a beautiful tone if a touch on the light side of dark (with the included mouthpiece). if you get what I mean! Build quality looks good and solid and the intonation is good. My only niggle was the radial 'slop' in the valves, that is, they would turn a few degrees in their casings. This would probably not make a lot of difference to the way it played but it made the insrument 'feel cheap'. Upon inspection, the valve guides appeared to have been 'carved' to a point instead of having a square section to match the keyway in the valve casing. My remedy was to fit a set of genuine Yamaha valve guides (for theYFH631 flugelhorn). The only adjustment I had to make to the Yamaha guides was to file the key down a tiny bit to suit the depth of the keyway in the Thomann flugel, and the felt bumpers above the valve guide were replaced with Yamaha ones as the guides are are bit harder than the originals and make the valves a bit noisy with the existing felts . My Thomann flugelhorn now feels like I paid £1,600 for it!

I bought one of these flugelhorns and had to send it back as the intonation was so bad it was unplayable. I gave it a 1/5 rating. Luckily, Thomann's customer service was great and they refunded the money in full.
I thought it just might be a quality control problem so I ordered the same model again and this time struck gold (well, brass). This one has much better intonation - it's not perfect, the high D is always a bit flat, but it's way better than the previous one and is now fun to play. The sound as a whole is also better with this one, especially when playing quietly.
So, I've changed my review... from 1/5 to 4/5 - now very happy with this instrument at this price and think I will have to spend over ¤1000 to get anything significantly better.
Thanks, too, to Thomann's excellent customer service - by taking the old one back and refunding me, it allowed me to order again and get one which I'm happy with. Danke.