screamingmorris

"I also hear of bottoming out and would like to hear exactly what this means."

I don't think anyone answered that part of your post.

"Bottoming out" simply means that your lip is touching the inside of the cup somewhere and that is interfering with the air flow and / or stopping your lips from vibrating.

Your lip might touch the inside of the cup near the rim, or your lip might touch the inside of the cup near the throat, depending on the shape of the cup and depending on your mouthpiece / lip positioning.

Your lip might be just barely touching the inside of the cup, in which case your lip still vibrates but the air flow is severely interfered with.
Or your lip might touch the inside of the cup so hard that the lip stops vibrating.

Different players have lips which protrude into the cup to different degrees, so one player might play well with a particular mouthpiece while another player bottoms out on that same mouthpiece.
That can be due to differences in embouchure types, differences in how fleshy the lips are, and how much mouthpiece pressure is used.

Players such as myself cannot use extremely shallow mouthpieces because we bottom out easily.
To use the shallowest mouthpiece possible some of us use a cup would has a steep drop-off from rim into cup: shaped like a "U".
Our lips tend to touch the cup near the rim if we use cups which have a shallow drop-off from rim into cup: shaped more like "V".
We can use a "V" cup as long as it is a deep "V".
But when we get into very shallow cups the cup must be shaped more like "U" so that our lips don't touch that shallow area of the cup near the rim.
Example, the Schilke 14A4A is really not very shallow, but I have trouble playing it because the cup shape is more "V" and my lip brushes against the cup near the rim just enough to interfere with air flow.

Another factor: I was surpised that I was able to play a Wick 4E even though it is very shallow.
I finally noticed that Wick put a very small second cup at the throat, making that part of the cup near the throat silghtly deeper, which was keeping my lip from touching the cup near the throat.
Without that second little cup added near the throat I would probably have bottomed out on the Wick 4E.

Also, if you are using the shallowest mouthpiece for your type, you might bottom out on it when you are not warmed up because your lips are flabby and protruding into the cup slightly more.
But after warming up you might find that you are no longer bottoming out on that cup because your lips are less flabby and thus not protruding into the cup as much.
So when checking to see if a shallow mouthpiece is too shallow for you and might cause bottoming out, it is important to try the mouthpiece after you are properly warmed up.

Hope this long-winded explanation helps.

- Morris