The only Eb, D, or Eb/D trumpets I've played have been short bell Bachs (newer model Eb and older model D but I can't remember which unfortunately), the Schilke E3L, and the Thomann ETR-3000L. Out of all of those, the Schilke E3L has played best so I figured I'd give Thomann's tunable bell model a try. Out of the box the valves and slides needed some grease and breaking in, but this didn't take very long at all. The tone and clarity was very nice, and very much reminded me of the Schilke E3L. The valves may not be as good as say Carol Brass valve blocks, however in this price range they so far have given me no issues and cycle very smoothly. The lacquer looks professionally done with no signs of mistakes at this time. One flaw however is that the third valve stop screw can be set too far in and scratch the slide itself. I don't know if I had done this or if the horn came like this in that setting, but it does have a light scratch because of this issue. The screw does have an o-ring to keep the setting tight however so I'm glad that measure was taken at least. The case being a Protec is also a plus; it's a good quality double case. The mouthpiece I received had some black substance in the entrance to the throat area that was hard to get off. After removing this, it showed raw brass underneath. This was disappointing, as I'm not sure how this would have gotten in there other than being a defect.
The only budget-feeling parts so far feel like the receiver and trim kit, however this does not affect the playing. This is a very capable horn and I can't wait to see how it stands up over time. I will say that it is an upgrade over the ETR-3000 model in terms of intonation in the playing I've done with them, so if you plan on playing a lot of solo literature on a daily basis, this horn is well worth the money.
So far the D side feels better than the Eb side, but this is probably because I've played plenty of C trumpet and the D side simply feels closer to it. Overall I'm impressed by the value of this horn and I'm glad I made this purchase.
