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Which Benge?



 
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kehaulani
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 19, 2021 7:04 pm    Post subject: Which Benge? Reply with quote

Would anyone like to take a stab at telling the differences between the original Benge (Burbank/L.A.) trumpet – the Burbank trumpet – and the Kanstul 1000?

ML bore

Just wondering. Thanks.
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Jon Arnold
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have owned 2 Burbank Benges and played a students LA Benge. (I have only played 3x's.) My favorite by far was a Burbank 3X MLP., .464 bore. I prefer the larger bore and feel like the upper register just sang. It was open but not too much. Many of them need valve jobs and the tubes are very thin and suffer from wear and rot.
If you can find one in great condition , they are wonderful trumpets. I cannot speak on the Kanstul Version.

The 3x MLP had a great sound, full and bright but not shrill. Great agility. Slotting looser than a Bach.

I have a buddy who is an amazing player who played lead on a LA 6X and LA Claude Gordon. I don't have the air for such large bore horns but he sounded great on them.

Also, the valve stems are longer on the LA benges versus the Burbank.


Last edited by Jon Arnold on Wed Oct 20, 2021 6:02 am; edited 1 time in total
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trickg
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 4:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've always been curious about this as well - supposedly Kanstul took the best of what was a Benge and corrected a couple of the known quirks the original Benge was purported to have, which I don't remember off the top of my head.

A friend of mine picked up a Kanstul before Kanstul became well known in its own right amongst players. At the time the model was simply known as the Kanstul Burbank. This was a long time ago, so make of it what you will, but I recall that horn having an easy blow and a nice vibrant sound. Visually, it looked just like a Benge.
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Dayton
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I haven't compared all three. My brief experience with the Kanstul 1001 was that it felt/sounded just like my Benge 3X MLP. I was never a huge fan of Kanstul's valves, but did prefer them to the Benge valves.

I played the Kanstul 1000 at ITG one year and thought it was a nice horn, but had sold my Benge 3X by then so could not directly compare.

I also played a Kanstul-made "Burbank" equivalent of the 3X MLP and thought it was a nice horn, but again, could not directly compare it to a Benge 3X MLP or the Kanstul 1000.
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Vin DiBona
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 6:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've had all of them.
My first Benge was a Burbank 5X (sn 63XX) that I got in the summer of 67 just before my senior year in high school. That was fabulous horn. I used it all through music school and it was great for orchestra, solo, brass ensemble, and jazz band. I wore the poor thing out and in the late 80s, Wayne Tanabe advised me that he could rebuild it, but couldn't guarantee it would be as good as before. My folks paid around $300 for that horn. I got $700 for it. I bought a used Bach 72/43 large bore as a replacement.

Next was a Kanstul Chicago 1000. It was a good horn, but people with real ears said I didn't sound like myself and they thought I was fighting it. When I heard a playback of A Trumpeter's Lullaby I soloed on, it proved to me what they were saying. I tried quite a few mouthpieces to see what would get me back to my own sound. Nothing did, so I sold it.

Then, on a whim, I found a very clean LA Benge 3X (S/N 17XXX) a good horn but not great. Somewhat reticent in the upper register and just not as good as the 5X and it didn't have that special sound Benges can have.

With Benges, you can get a great one, a mediocre one, or a worn out one.
I have friends with rebuilt Chicago Benges done by Steve Winans. They are two of the greatest horns you can imagine.

Kanstul had the tooling, but their assembly could have some serious issues. If Zig didn't look at it, it might be substandard.
I am certain he had his hand in that Burbank 5X.
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kehaulani
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Doesn't the "Burbank Trumpet" (brand name, not Benge or Kanstil) have the original tooling?
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OldSchoolEuph
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 9:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Burbank Benge horns were, of course, the purest Benge horns as Elden was running the show there 1938-1960. These were all pure Benge designs, unlike Chicago Benge horns that span the spectrum from all F.Besson with replacement F.Besson parts or Holton parts made on F.Besson tooling, to essentially a Burbank Benge circa 1937-38.

Benge died, Donald Benge sold the company to focus on board games, and King transformed Benge into a stencil on Eastlake Kings.

Donald Benge regretted this and recruited Zig Kanstul to create Burbank Benge style trumpets. This was the birth of the Burbank brand (1981 I believe). Zig eventually obtained the Benge tooling abandoned by King when they moved out of LA, but initially may have used, may have continued to use, engineering data from the Olds Custom project when he and Dale Olsen mapped Benge bells and leadpipes among others.

When Kanstul expanded to his own firm shortly after to do more than just stencil Burbank, he leveraged these first designs under his own name. Ultimately, Byron Autrey made a new "traditional" leadpipe for the 1000, and a "Benge" leadpipe for the 1001 (which was his ongoing evolution of what started as a Benge taper - he was still refining it for Kanstul when he died). Kanstul indicated that Byron also tweaked the bell taper for the 1001.

So they are all Benge in a way, and all Kanstul (if you count him assembling them in Burbank) as well.
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shofarguy
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There are some differences that are fairly easy to spot. The Kanstul Chicago 1000 & 1001 have slightly heavier bottom caps on their valve clusters. The Burbank brand horns' are lighter and essentially the same design as the Benge caps, though it's odd that Benge caps will go on a Kanstul horn, but not the other way around. The Benge male thread being just a tiny bit too large for the Kanstul cap.

The bore centers on the Kanstul valves are a compromise between the two Benge designs. Benge had one valve cluster for the ML and L horns and a different design for the MLP horns. This second design has wider spacing between ports with a larger radius "half-tone bowl", as Byron used to call it. This made the classic long-stroke that Benge is known for.

The Kanstul Chicago valve bore centers (1000 & 1001) are somewhere in between. This gave less "siamesed" area in the piston port tubes and so smaller bumps there. It allowed one design for both horns instead of two and gave an acceptable stroke length.

If memory serves, the Benge valve tubing had a smaller OD, which meant thinner tubing inside and out. I believe this helped give those Benge horns their famous responsiveness. Benge also drew their mouthpiece receivers out of tubing, whereas Kanstul machined theirs. One of the parts that often fails on a Benge is the receiver, as it tends to split, if the player plunks his mouthpiece in too far. I used to place my mouthpiece in the receiver and gently give it 1/8th turn or so. It seemed to be a good practice, as my 5x never showed signs of receiver wear.

Finger buttons are different. Stock Kanstul buttons are thin flat-topped brass. All Benge buttons that I've seen are a beautiful oval section MoP design. Kanstul made those for their Burbank line and I have them on my WT horns, as well. I love the look and feel of the classic Benge buttons!

Another oddity is the 3rd valve stop rod. They are supposed to be the same thread but, to my eye, the Benge rod is thinner and more delicate. They also use a different mounting pad for the water keys on the Chicago horns. The Benge design is round. I think the Kanstul design is a four pointed star. What Kanstul most definitely got right are the little turnings on the valve slides. In my opinion, the valve buttons, the forward 2nd slide and those gorgeous slide pull turnings are the primary styling cues that say "Benge" the loudest. Add to that the wedge shaped ferrules on the slide bowls and you have 90% of the Benge aesthetic.

The Kanstul Chicago series, according to Jack Kanstul, was born out of a chance encounter between a Kanstul artist and an anonymous man who had what he called "an old Bengee trumpet" his father had left him. It turned out to be a pristine Chicago era horn. The artist convinced the man to bring it to Zig, who measured it and created tooling from it that would be used for the 1000 and 1001 models. The 1070 was a rebranded Besson Meha that Zig had slated for a redesign to "make it look like a Benge." Of course, that never happened.

I still think the 1001 is Kanstul's best Bb trumpet. At least, it's my favorite. A good one with a Flip Oakes Total Enhancement is about as fine a trumpet as anyone could want (save for the Wild Thing, itself! ).

I'm not as fond of the 1000. To me, it never feels like a Benge. None that I've played had what I've termed "The Dance" that is the magical Benge experience. It's heavy and stodgy in the hand and to play. It's as if all of those Kanstul "improvements" that work on the 1001 overburden the 1000. The real star of the ML Besson-esque Kanstul horns is the X-Model, which, like the 1070, uses the Besson valve block and incidentals. It looks a little different, but it plays with that Benge magic.
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kehaulani
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's amazing, guys. And what difference in the sounds did you get?
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shofarguy
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

kehaulani wrote:
That's amazing, guys. And what difference in the sounds did you get?


I was able to compare my 1976 5X with the 1000, 1001 and others. I don't remember too much difference in sound.

I was able to compare a Burbank era Benge 3X+ with a new Kanstul Burbank 3X+. The Benge was from 1960 with a lacquer finish. The Burbank was silver. The Kanstul had a very fresh (new) feel and sound, while the Benge did sound a bit worn and comfortable. What I mean is the Benge had less brilliance and felt loser. It felt relaxed and lyrical. The Burbank was crisp and resonant with a definite edge that the Benge didn't have. It had more definite slotting; not really that different, just new feeling.

Why? I can't say for sure. The Benge was Michael Thomas' personal horn bought from Donald in the middle 60s. The Burbank was brand new stock that Michael had at the time. I imagine the Benge was well cared for and maintained. It just had a good number of miles on it. I think horns change as the years go by. I think they relax and mellow.
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Yamahaguy
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 21, 2021 2:12 pm    Post subject: Re: Which Benge? Reply with quote

kehaulani wrote:
Would anyone like to take a stab at telling the differences between the original Benge (Burbank/L.A.) trumpet – the Burbank trumpet – and the Kanstul 1000?
Lots of good stuff here, but here's my experience-
I have several Burbanks and LA's as well as a Chicago Benge.
I've owned three Kanstul 1001s and one "Burbank" copy 3x...
None of them had the Benge brilliance which some (like me) covet.
They were solid (yet average) horns in their own rights although they
had their share of issues as some have stated already. Basically, they just looked the same.
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