So I am wondering, what do you prefer and why? Trumpet or Box for your bass drone?
Box / puck… because the trumpet looks totally gay… not that there’s anythi…
PD.
What a relief, I thought this was going to be a thread about accordions and bugles.
I have to go with the puck, unless the trumpet is on a “straight” drone 
No E
Trumpet or box doesn’t really matter to me much. My Bass drones swing both ways.
(Oh great…this is how rumours get started! 
)
Puck yeah, Certainly one thing that distinguishes the pipes from any other musical instrument is the end of a bass drone. Let the other musical instruments have the flare.
Pucks for me until they make something sexier…
Even when I played Warpipes I always enjoyed a deep powerful bass so when I heard that the puck gives a stronger , louder tone over then trumpet - there was no question for me.
I wouldn’t say that the puck has any (positive) effect on loudness or strength of the tone. It does effect the tonal quality somewhat. Seems to act mostly as a filter, producing what to my ear is a bit of a “machinelike” quality to the sound.
Recently I have come to the conclusion that I prefer the “un-pucked” sound.
(Of course the ‘puck’ need not be hollow, therefore it need not sound any different from a trumpet. Many of the old pucks were solid.)
Best regards,
Bill
For what it’s worth, as PJ pointed out a few months ago, Nick Whitmer’s trumpet-style end for the bass drone is hollow, like most pucks. I have a set of his compact drones for my Hillmann chanter and they sound great. (Although I do very much prefer the look of the puck, like on my Childress drones, which also sound great, but different – more machine-like, as BillH notes.)
I like the box, for pucks sake.
Thanks for the clarification Bill. I should do the same now… I like a solid puck 
PD.
I personally like a well-hollowed puck, but i’d think a larger tulip-shape would also work well. The hollow seems to cut out the amplified “raspiness” of the reed to me, making the tone more pure, and less “buzzy”… a refined flatulence vs. a crude flatulence sound and it seems to drop the pitch a bit too. I’ve read that the final vent hole is supposed to be a little smaller than the adjacent bore and perhaps that is part of the effect but I imagine there is more to it.
Imaine that, you can’e even type f-a-r-t without it being censored automatically. I am a very pleasant pheasant mother plucker. I’ve plucked many fine mother pheasants.