gglassmeyer

I know that the intent when designing the Conn Vintage 1 was to recapture some of Conn's lost thunder by looking to the vintage Conn horns and finding what made them great.

I own a Vintage One, but my only previous Conn horn was a late 70's 16B student horn (not exactly Conn's finest, but it was built to withstand a student's abuse).

I was curious if any of our vintage Conn players have tried the Vintage One and how they felt about the new horn vs their classic Conn.

maynardthe2nd

I've know from experience that the old conns play SO much better than the new conns, although I've never played a Vintage 1, i've played a new connstellation a few years back vs. a pre 1970s version connstellation, and the old one was SO much better, the tone was a lot more smooth and the overall design kicked butt

Dustin

I have a vintage Conn. I can't say that I've played a Vintage One, but I have played a newer Connstellation, and my 60's Connstellation blew it out of the water. It was a good horn, but nowhere near as good as mine. I would say your best bet would be to find someone with a very good condition vintage Conn and compare the horns.

gglassmeyer

I know the new Connstellations are way brighter that the Vintage 1. My problem is I don't know anyone with a good older Conn. I am very impressed with the Vintage 1 and chose it over a really nice sounding Bach Strad. It has a really nice rich tone, slots beautifully and has great valves. It's really a shame that Conn drove their reputation into the ground. I think there are so many people out there that won't even consider a Conn horn. They really did try to get the Vintage 1 right and incorporate what was great about the vintage horns. You should at least get your hands on one and give it a try. No sense buying one though if you've got one of the originals. If you do try one be sure to try it with the rounded tuning slide, it will seem a lot less stuffy to you.

trptbenge

I have played the new Conn Vintage One and found it to be a well made, beautifully playing, horn. That was about three years ago - before the designer and driving force behind the Vintage One, Fred Powell, left the company. I don't know how the quality and consistency of the horns is now days. The ones I played were top drawer horns that would compete with other top of the line horns.

Mike

omelet

ive only played a vintage one but very much liked that horn

maynardthe2nd

it's hard to compare the older horns to the newer ones, because Conn kinda "revived" itself, so the way they make them is alot different, and though the older ones play better, i couldn't bring my self to buy a trumpet older than the one i hav (30 years old).

Don Christensen

Conn didn't drive their reputation into the ground; UMI did it when they bought them out, along with King, Benge, Buescher, Martin, York, etc...

gglassmeyer

Yeah, sorry about blaming Conn, I guess over the last few decades I kind of equate UMI, Conn, King, Benge etc. It's really quite sad to know how passionately people feel about the pre UMI horns by these various makers and that UMI homogenized them into a long dark period.
I had read some good reviews about the Vintage 1 and was glad to see that they were trying to recapture what made the older Conns great playing horns. I really love the Vintage 1 and hopefully one day I'll run across on of it's ancestors to compare them side by side. It would be cool if they tried to create a similar King that played like one from the 30's, 40's or 50's. Of course they would likely not have the excellent engraving due to cost.
Well for me at least I know they can make a good horn, I have no idea what kind of profit they're making on the Vintage 1 sales. If they aren't making money then sadly they won't see any value in creating good horns.

Bulos

You really can't compare the two and Conns from the 20's differ from say 50's Conns and so forth. I have a few vintage Conns and have played them all. Their best designs rival any horn from any era. I played a Vintage One and it's a typical UMI horn. Ever notice how similar the "Kings" "Benges" and "Conns" UMI produced were almost identical??? My current playing on gigs horn is a 1927 Conn 2B.