[1] Although described in Adolphe Sax's patent in 1846, a practical, playable subcontrabass saxophone did not exist until the 21st century.

[2] An oversized saxophone that might have qualified was built as a prop circa 1965; it could produce tones, but its non-functional keywork required assistants to manually open and close the pads, and it was reportedly incapable of playing a simple scale.

[3] The tubax was developed in two sizes in 1999 by German instrument manufacturer Benedikt Eppelsheim, the lower of which, pitched in B♭, he describes as a "subcontrabass saxophone".

[5] In the 2000s, contrabass and subcontrabass saxophones became popular in church orchestras in Brazil, and are made by Brazilian instrument manufacturers J'Élle Stainer and Galassine.

[11][citation needed] There is no historical classical music or jazz repertoire specifically scored for a subcontrabass saxophone, since playable instruments have only existed since 2010.