It's here!
My Eppelsheim Eb contrabass saxophone arrived today. No problems, and it played perfectly right out of the box, and it's fantastic! I've only spent about an hour with it, but here are my initial impressions:
It uses the same mouthpieces as my Eppelsheim bass saxophone, and I had already done extensive experimenting with bass sax mouthpieces, so I was already familiar with the "front end" of the horn.
It's easier to play than I had anticipated. It's at least as easy as a bass saxophone. The tone using the large chamber mouthpiece is lush and very musical. The mouthpieces with a higher baffle work better on the contrabass than on the bass, at least for me. They add various degrees of edge and flexibility is still pretty good. The contrabass is a pretty loud horn, however, louder than a Tubax, and I probably will stick with the darker sound.
As with all of Eppelsheim's big horns, keywork goes up to high F# with an additional "altissimo valve" for playing even higher. The new contrabass has a low A key, something completely new on contrabass saxophones. Also typical of the work of this maker, there are no bad notes on the horn. This is also new in the world of contrabasses, as the 1920s contras and the modern Orsi contras were very problematic.
Benedikt Eppelsheim has helped with the development of the new LeGere bass sax reeds, and he sent me some with the horn. They are excellent, maybe the best bass sax reeds yet.