| Maybe I can shed some light on this for you. Just yesterday I had the opportunity to play side by side in my house my LB Bach Strad, 25 Bell, a Wild Thing in Silver plate, slides #1 and #2, and a ZeuS Guarnerius with multiple slides in satin lacquer. For the record, this Wild Thing did not come from Flip, but it came from one of his representatives and I DID NOT have to pay a $200 restocking fee.
First of all, let me first say that while the ZueS G did seem to hold it's own against my Bach, (but only with the .470 rounded tuning slide) it really didn't match the fit and finish of my Bach and it certainly didn't come close to matching the fit and finish of the Wild Thing. The Wild Thing is put together extraordinarily well. It's really no use looking for minor flaws in the fit and finish of the Wild Thing because to my naked eye, there are none. The ZeuS on the other hand, ifyou really wanted to get picky, you could see a couple of places where the fit could have been just a tad better (braces) or perhaps a part could have been buffed a little more, and therein lies a big difference in cost. Time. It takes much more time for one person to really take special time and attention to assembling a horn and time is money.
Another thing is playability. The Wild Thing plays VERY well with either of the slides that were in the case. It is my understanding that once Flip assembles a horn, he plays it and if it doesn't play or resonate the way that he believes it should, then he makes some adjustments so that it will. This includes aligning the valves and placing the braces so that they don't hamper the resonance of the instrument. Again, this kind of thing takes more time and attention. However, I believe you get what you pay for. Likewise with the ZeuS. I think that just like with a new Bach Strad, you are going to be rolling the dice every time you buy one. The ZeuS that I played yesterday was not a horn I would have wanted on a gig with the stock original slide. It was very tight and was not as responsive as I would have liked. With the .470 slide, it was a different horn altogether, and one that I would have gladly played on a gig. Playability was very similar to my Bach and maybe even a little better up top. The sound was maybe a bit brighter than on my horn too, but for the kind of playing that I do, that might be a good thing.
But back to the Wild Thing, this horn has the unique characteristic for being able to be whatever you want it to be with little to no extra effort. If you want to sound dark, you just have to set your mind to that and it sounds that way. If you want it to be brash, bright and brassy, give it the gas and there it is. The ZeuS on the other hand is what it is. You might be able to color the sound a bit just by thinking about it, but most likely, you are going to have to switch mouthpieces to get a different sound.
The best comparison I can make here is that the Wild Thing is like a Dodge Viper and the ZueS and my Bach are like Cameros. They will all get you where you need to go, but the Viper is going to out perform the others in almost every aspect.
I'd like to address your comment about Mr. Zachary being an amazing designer. When I pulled the tuning slide from the ZueS, it fit right into the tuning slide ports of my Bach. It wasn't a tight enough fit, but I think that has more to do with my Bach being LB instead of ML, like the ZeuS. I think that if my Bach had been a Medium Large bore, the tuning slides would have been interchangeable. Where am I going with this? I think that when it comes right down to it, most of the dimensions for the ZeuS G are probably going to match those on a Bach Strad with maybe a few exceptions. Held up to a Bach Strad side by side, they are so close it's scary. It doesn't take an amazing designer to measure the dimensions of a horn and use those as your basis for a design. Of course this is all in reference to the ZeuS G, not the Olympus which I have yet to lay eyes on.
Leigh McKinney is an amazing designer. His horns don't look like anything else out there and they contain some design inovations that you don't find on other horns. Put that together with the amount of time and energy that he puts into making them and I believe that he is justified charging what he does for his horns.
I have never been one to denounce or try to detract from the ZeuS. I have played a couple of them and I maintain what I have said from the beginning: The ZueS G is a solidly built, solid playing horn and is a great value for the dollar. If you want something that has a superior finish, you aren't going to get it with the ZeuS G. I think that it's in the final finishing process that some corners are cut in an effort to get the horn out for less than the competition. Discerning horn players tend to care less what a horn looks like that what it plays like and because of that, the ZueS G is going to have a following.
With the Wild Thing, I believe a prospective horn owner can purchase a Wild Thing with the confidence that not only is the horn going to look good, but it's going to play as good as it looks.
P.S. The ZeuS G. that I had the good fortune to play yesterday is owned by TM member and fellow Marylander Paul Artola. (fatpauly) I was impressed with his ZeuS (with the .470 slide) and told him that I thought he had a keeper. I would happily take it to a gig in lieu of my Bach.
Like I said, it's a solid horn and where you can probably put it on the level of a production line Bach, I just don't think that it can really be considered on the same level as some of the other "Superhorns" like the Eclipse and Wild Thing.
__________________ Patrick Gleason
email me at: trickg1@hotmail.com
"What we do in life echoes in eternity"
"At my signal, unleash hell."
- Maximus Decimus Meridius |