I'm a bit late jumping into this discussion, but I would like to make an observation. Stephen Howard's reviews are so valuable because he looks at saxes from the inside out from the perspective of both a repair technician and as a player. The very lowest priced Chinese saxophones do indeed look very nice cosmetically. The real differences between those and the other higher priced Asian saxophones has to do with the quality of materials, quality of parts, quality of assembly, and quality of design. Many of the attributes are not apparent until the keys are removed and the hinge rods, pivot screws, hinge tubes, toneholes, solder joints, buffering materials, springs, and posts are inspected up close.
Even if a tech were to go completely through one of these ISO's (instrument shaped objects) and bring the mechanics and materials up to par, many of them would still play octaves out of tune and be impossible to play music on because of the amount of "lipping" required to play a "well tempered scale would be highly impractical.
I am not condemning ALL Mainland Chinese Saxophones because I haven't seen them all. I am just describing those I have seen that seem to be the worst of the breed.