Every time I went around and played these horns at shows, the same things popped up. Most of the contras were pretty good contrabass trombones- big sounding low registers. That's really all people seem to look for! Two horns have always stood out to me. The Rath at ITF seemed like a pretty good instrument, in that it was more than just a low register. It seemed more like a trombone.
I have played 4 Laetzsch contras at festivals. All of them blew me away in the fact that they were actually amazing trombones, not just contrabass trombones. All the registers work. They respond to normal inputs. I don't have to qualify my compliments for them.
Of course, there is a price to pay for that kind of design and build quality, so I just put them out of mind. After all, I have a functional, good sounding instrument already (that doesn't really get used in real life!).
Well, somehow I lucked into a great deal on a Laetzsch. It's exactly what I would want if I had ever thought about getting one myself- carbon fiber Full-Flow valves, German tuning of F/D/BBb/AAb.
Am I suddenly going to get thousands of contra gigs? Probably not... but boy howdy do I have the horn to use for them if that happens.
And perhaps even more surprisingly, it's just as good as I remembered!
