without additional triggers and rings and the like) and then had their quality control guys go over the hooters. That's why there is the Courtois stamp on the valve block. I've recently got info from another player who used to visit the Courtois works pretty regularly that Courtois did not produce different lines per se. It came with a #1 Tilz mouthpiece which suited it very well indeed, but for me it does best with my regular Bach Megatone 1C, or with my Stomvi Mouthpiece System on 1 B configuration.Īs to being an intermediate/student horn. I've had a number of C trumpets in my time - I started off with a Bach Strad 239, then had a Strad rotary, a Stomvi Elite C, a 1940 Couesnon, a Votruba rotary C (which I only play-tested for a friend of mine who wanted it to top a friend's gold-plated Lechner - which it did), but the Gaudet is the one that fits me best.
I had a friend test play it as well - pro player with 25 years of playing in London West End musicals under his belt - and he wanted to take if off me for a whopping € 1,500 at once. Is yours worth 250 EUR? If it plays well, which it sounds like it does, then who cares what name is stamped on the Well, mine is exactly the same. Intonation is good and the sound quality is on a par with a good Bb, like you say. I checked valve alignment and it's spot on, which makes me think someone aligned them in the past.
The plate is near perfect, and the compression is tight.
The bell has been repaired at some point, but very professionally. Similarly, QA may have been less stringent than for a pro horn.īut in the end, all horns - pro or student - are hand made, so there's always the chance to get a star for $300 or a dog for $3000.
I suspect tolerances are looser in the student horns, there may be differences in how processes like valve lapping were carried out, the plating is probably thinner, and there was maybe less attention to prep and polishing beforehand. Where the biggest savings probably came, though, is in time. The Gaudet only has a 3rd valve ring (which has actually been removed on mine, so I'm going to have to get one put on) and nothing on 1st, so that's another saving. But they are still people who were working for Courtois, one of the finest brass makers in the world, and they would have been taught by master craftsmen. Manufactured parts would be made on the same lines, but maybe by less experienced builders? That would reduce the cost of the lower-end models. It doesn't make sense to vary the raw materials since they'd get a better deal buying in greater bulk. I guess the real question is, what do manufacturers change between pro and student models? And that comes down to economics. Of course, if I can get my hands on a vintage Courtois mouthpiece at some point, I'll try that. The best sound ironically comes with my normal piece, a Blessing 1.5C. My first inclination was to go down to a tighter mouthpiece, but that gave a very brittle tone. When I first picked it up, it had the usual intonation quirks on E, Eb, and G, but I found that changing mouthpieces (and therefore, I guess, gap) has corrected that. It sings in every register, with a big sound despite only having an ML bore.
louder.Ĭomparisons notwithstanding, as a C trumpet in its own right, I just love the sound it produces. On the Xeno, loud = brash, whereas the Gaudet just gets. I've played it against a friend's Xeno C, and the Gaudet stands up better to being pushed. That said, mine plays like a horn costing at least 10 times more (I paid $300 inc. I missed out, but luckily I found another one on sale from a seller in FranceĪs others have said, the Gaudet line was Courtois's student/intermediate line.