We bought a couple of Orion sousaphones a few years back. They've been okay and have held up well. While they're not 20k's or King, they've been okay. The tuning is not the best. I've had to work with students to adjust a bunch. That being said, for the crazy money sousa's bring now, these fit the bill for our poor district.

We bought Conn sousaphones recently. They've been trouble.

Our Yamaha sousaphones are still going strong and are at least 12 years old. There's a design flaw/weak point where the valve stem screws into the piston, I have to deal with that breaking a few times each year, but otherwise they've been solid workhorses. If I was buying again I would buy Yamaha.

A few friends have Jupiter sousaphones and hate them.

To echo below:

We have a number of Orion brass instruments from Bandwagon in our school inventory including marching baritones and sousaphones.

Those Orion marching instruments are very, very good. Even more so when you consider pricing. An Orion sousaphone is going to be at least 40% less expensive than the Jupiter and ours have held up as well as anything else we have had in the past.

I bought some marching Euphoniums from the bandwagon music company. It's their own brand. They were not made with the thin metal that a lot of other (non name brands) are. It has improved the sound of my low brass section. (we were using older small marching baritones from Bach) I have ordered a Sousaphone from them. Waiting on it to come in. It was significantly cheaper than the name brands.

The Jupiter sousaphones are very heavy and the 4th valve is not worth the extra weight. The pitch on these are also VERY touch to manage. We also constantly send them to the repair shop.