Antoine Courtois ACTOMA-1-0 Trumpet Lacquered

Ich habe lange von diesem Instrumetn geträumt: Eine Trompete, mit der man auch die persische Radif ebenso ohne Bending intonieren kann, wie das westafrikanische Rast Pentatonic, die Mutterskala von Blues.
Während es von anderen Anbietern das dreifache gekostet hat, hat es mich sehr gefreut zu sehen, dass Thomann nun offizieller Dealer von HOMA ist!

Das Instrument ist wertig gebaut, hat einen runden Klang und auch die Federn der Züge finde ich nicht zu hart.
Das Spielen mit dem vierten Zug ist natürlich etwas gewöhnungsbedürftig. Aber man erst einmal ausgecheckt hat, was man damit spielen möchte, und die Vierteltöne dann trifft, macht es eine unglaubliche Freude.
Diese "kleine" Erweiterung stößt die Türen auf zu unglaubliche Klangwelten.

Einzig die Halte-Ringe wünschte ich mir offen. Der hintere ist für mein Gefühl etwas zu eng und der Vordere zwingt den kleinen Finger der rechten Hand manchmal mit dem vierten Zug zu kollidieren.
Aber auch da findet man sicher mit etwas Übung die richtige Haltung ;-)

TL;DR this trumpet sounds and plays great and in this price range it’s the only possibility to have a quarter-tone valve.

This is my second Toma trumpet: the first one was the "vintage" version but it had a bent tuning slide so I returned it and got this one. Big kudos to Thomann for great customer support!

The pros:
* the sound is beautiful, very warm and maybe even has a certain "Maaloufy" quality to it, awesome!
* the quarter-tone valve is super fun and opens up a whole world of possibilites, including playing maqams and middle-eastern music.
* it is really easy to play, the high notes are quite effortless and it seems to respond nicely to even small quantities of air
* the lacquered version (this product) looks really nice and clean. In my case the vintage version was way darker than the photos and reminded me a bit of a style of doorknobs that was popular a while ago.
* the bottom caps are a bit heavier, which I like very much. Maybe slightly lighter than KGU Medium but similar ballpark.

The cons:
* both this trumpet and the vintage one I returned have leaking main tuning slides. This one leaks only slightly, so I just bought some Ultra-Pure Heavy Slide Grease (which from the looks of it could also be used to fix a leaking kitchen sink -- super sticky and dense) and it helped.

Random thoughts (not cons per se):
* the valves were too hard for my liking so I swapped the springs for something lighter — now they are great.
* might sound stupid but the case it comes with requires you to fully retract the main tuning slide: this can be problematic now that my tuning slide is covered in super sticky grease. I just keep using my Thomann Voyager case (the trumpet fits without any problems, even with the fourth valve)

All in all, I love having a quarter-tone trumpet and I'm grateful I could get one in a "student" price. I'm definitely willing to overlook some QC issues: other quarter tone trumpets costs four times as much. One last thing that might be helpful: it's not immediately obvious how to hold this trumpet and operate the 3rd valve tuning slide. What I did is study videos and photos of the great Ibrahim Maalouf to see how he holds this trumpet: it's a bit of an adjustment but after a few days it becomes second nature.