I,m thinking of buying one of these Yamaha silent brass systems to avoid the divorce courts. Has anyone any experience of them? What did you think?

Yep. I own one and it works well.

I strongly encourage you to try and get the Best Brass Silent mute though (designed by someone from the Yamaha team). It is the same thing except a little smaller so it fits in the bell better and is more comfortable when practicing, ands travels better. The Yamaha is good but the larger size makes it a little uncomfortable to play with.

I bought my Yamaha before the Best Brass came out. A friend lent me his Best Brass and it is equal in noise reduction but way better feel to hold while playing.I am going to be getting a Best Brass anyway.

I can blow my horn at FFFFFFFFFF in the living room at 5am while my wife is asleep in the bedroom. And there are no complaints.

John

Thanks for the advice I will give it a try

i have a silent brass and i think its great, i can practice late at night and at college if there are no practice rooms available. a really great thing is you can plug it into a guitar effects pedal and create crazy sounds, which is always quite good. i also use it at gigs as i play in a rock/blues band i use it instead of a microphone i can plug it straight into an amp.

Reedy brings up a good point.
Both the Yamaha and the Best Brass have inputs. They are designed so you can listen to yourself through headphones and the technology allows you to hear wht you should sound like without the mute.

You can hook it up to a board, switch, or anything.Thanks Reedy for bringing that point up.

I had one of these for a few days and took it right back. Its not worth it to plug in all kinds of crap just to play a few notes. Get what is called the "best brass practice mute" its about 80 bucks but its hella good. There is no resistance or back pressure and it plays beautifully!!!!!!!!!!!

i bought mine from here and got it pretty quick:
http://www.horntrader.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=8&Category_Code=M93