based on personal experience, akin to what Pete is saying, I’d say that it is impossible to be sure that two apparently identical horns are actually coming from the same factory.
The weirdest thing is that even if we know for sure that they come from the same factory they might not be identical is some not unimportant details (such as the screws, the sprigs, the pads......).
However it is not impossible that they are actually identical but you cannot just say it because they look similar based on elements such as the little ring on the octave key........ .
There must be horns out there coming from the same factory and even made the same way as BW........but I just don’t know which they are.
You can of course buy another Chinese made brand, but if you do, do that based on merit not on the fact that it looks like another brand that you know.
BW was also, once, an unknown brand sourced in China.
About buying a product made in Taiwan.
On Taiwan saxophones are more expensive to buy. Typically they cost 300 to 400% more than in China which makes them a lot more expensive.
Most Taiwanese companies (with very few exceptions) are small, family run, companies with no more than 15 people working there. The factories specialise in few products and almost never produce the entire range of saxophone. So you will find the specialist in Sopraninos (as far as I know there are only two makers of sopraninos on Taiwan) and sopranos or the specialist in Baritones.
China has huge factories with hundreds of people working on a range of instruments.
Taiwan is, despite what the Chinese think of it (lately I saw the site of a saxophone company which called it “ the province of Taiwan” ) , an independent ( but not officially recognised as such in the UN) country with its own government and, very important in this context, its own army.
;}
