Saxophones Is an upgrade necessarily a Selmer or Yamaha?

[jambo]

hiding behind an important sounding name wrote:
i am an anchovy. i have tasted fishy for many years and have taught many people how to be fishy. despite this i often mis-spell the word fesh. i find hanson saxophones to be insufficiently fishy so i would always stick to traditional choices like herring and mackerel.

RRRRRRiiiiggggghhhhht

 

[jadoube]

i am an anchovy. i have tasted fishy for many years and have taught many people how to be fishy. despite this i often mis-spell the word fesh. i find hanson saxophones to be insufficiently fishy so i would always stick to traditional choices like herring and mackerel.

:laugh:

 

[Jules]

Er- would it be construed as out of order to shout "Nutter Alert!!"?

 

[bobk]

No, no, no - seemed a pretty incisive analysis to me!

nachoman wrote:
Er- would it be construed as out of order to shout "Nutter Alert!!"?

 

[philthd]

i thought it made a point about the post it was parodying

albeit surreally

 

[Pete Thomas]

philthD wrote:
i thought it made a point about the post it was parodying

albeit surreally

Certainly did

😉 😉

 

[Rogerb]

What I'd like to know, Anchovy, is how you hold that hatchet in order to use it so effectively ?

 

[Saxlicker]

hiding behind an important sounding name wrote:
i am an anchovy. i have tasted fishy for many years and have taught many people how to be fishy. despite this i often mis-spell the word fesh. i find hanson saxophones to be insufficiently fishy so i would always stick to traditional choices like herring and mackerel.

Time to join the thread :cry:
Mackerel does have a big aroma that is lush and can be singled out when passing the fishmongers!
Monkfish not yet mentioned, is very fleshy in the hand..oozing pure quality. AND it only cost sick squid!
Anyways...enough of all that, I don't think its helping very much!

I have enjoyed this reading this thread daily but in hind sight the most effective well balanced judgement may have been to physically get three impartial knowledgeable players to actually play the instrument in question. Like getting insurance quotes. >.<
I don't know how impartial saxteacher & professional musician are in the equasion but assuming they are, at the outset unbiased, a third pair of experienced hands might given a well weighted suspision that this particular sax had troubles or otherwise. That wouldn't hurt when taking it back to hansons who, by the sounds of it all have done and will continue to do their best in customer service.

 

[Pjonah]

Imotive topic huh!

 

[Pete Thomas]

Saxlicker wrote:


I don't know how impartial saxteacher & professional musician are in the equasion but assuming they are, at the outset unbiased, a third pair of experienced hands might given a well weighted suspision that this particular sax had troubles or otherwise. That wouldn't hurt when taking it back to hansons who, by the sounds of it all have done and will continue to do their best in customer service.

So far it looks like saxteacher is impartial - noticed problems originally and when the horn had been fixed accepted that it was fine.

a professional Musician wrote:

and i have found that the saxophone in question to be somewhat disapointing.

Did you check it after Hanson fixed the issue?

I'm not sure that "professional musician" is discussing the actual saxophone we are talking about or just Hanson saxophones in general.

Smells a bit fishy to me.

 

[Rogerb]

I think it would be very difficult to find three 'impartial' pro sax players to pass judgement on a single Hanson sax, against the reputation of Yamaha and Selmer (to name but two!)..... it's just too subjective to call, IMO.

Of course you could do 'blind' *listening* tests between this SA-8 and randomly-chosen samples of (similarly-priced?) Selmer and Yam altos, but that would, IMO, tell us very little about the suitability of *this* SA-8 for *this* student, as a long-term purchase.

A promising student wanting a 'sax for life' needs one, I s'pose, which has good intonation, is well-made (and therefore likely to be reliable), has good ergonomics, and is backed by an excellent after-sales service.
And, of course, it must be within the purchaser's 'budget'.

Who is sufficiently unprejudiced-but-qualified to provide advice on all of these factors? :erm:

 

[Bobby G]

Going back to tone-hole placement - I realise there is a mathematical formula for position, size etc to allow the notes to be true - well, as true as a user-makes-fine-adjustment instrument can be; what I was getting at was the differences in positioning of certain keys on the circumference of the body tube and whether that makes a difference to the overall sound. For instance, sometimes you'll find a tone hole tucked almost right into the curve of the bow on some horns, sometimes this same key is much more to the side. Again, the bell keys on older horns are on the other side to those on modern horns, and I wonder if this has any effect on the sound.

Cheers, Bob

 

[Saxlicker]

Rogerb wrote:
I think it would be very difficult to find three 'impartial' pro sax players to pass judgement on a single Hanson sax, against the reputation of Yamaha and Selmer (to name but two!)..... it's just too subjective to call, IMO.

Hi Roger,
My post wasn't about comparing it as a sax with other brands or other Hansons (although ..with other Hansons..that would have been a good test).
It was intended to evaluate this single Hanson as a horn that is capable of playing in tune enough with itself.

 

[Rogerb]

Saxlicker wrote:

Rogerb wrote:
I think it would be very difficult to find three 'impartial' pro sax players to pass judgement on a single Hanson sax, against the reputation of Yamaha and Selmer (to name but two!)..... it's just too subjective to call, IMO.

Hi Roger,
My post wasn't about comparing it as a sax with other brands or other Hansons (although ..with other Hansons..that would have been a good test).
It was intended to evaluate this single Hanson as a horn that is capable of playing in tune enough with itself.

Ah, OK, so we just need 3 people who are not committed Hanson/lovers or haters to try it and give a professional verdict on its intonation 🙂

I s'pose the best thing would be to cover the name .... but then they might be pre-disposed to think of it as 'just another nasty Chinese SSO' (saxophone-shaped object) 🙁
But I'm sure there are many pro players out there who have Pete's and Stephen Howard's open-mindedness and relative lack of prejudice.... you could give 'em the sax and just ask 'em to comment on its intonation.

It might become a well-travelled sax 🙂

Is there no reliable 'scientific' test of intonation?

 

[Saxlicker]

:whistle: 😛

Rogerb wrote:
Ah, OK, so we just need 3 people who are not committed Hanson/lovers or haters to try it and give a professional verdict on its intonation 🙂

Yes...
not necessarily a definative test as my first post tried to say but a lot more useful than us lot (varying degrees of experience considered) making judgement over a forum.

It might become a well-travelled sax 🙂

Depends where you live and who you know.

Is there no reliable 'scientific' test of intonation?

I guess so, and used in instrument design but what sax player should care past it being used to produce a sax? I don't know any human being that would match it.

 

[Rogerb]

Saxlicker wrote:
:whistle: 😛

Rogerb wrote:



Is there no reliable 'scientific' test of intonation?

I guess so, and used in instrument design but what sax player should care past it being used to produce a sax? I don't know any human being that would match it.

I was just trying to get past the fact that every sax player is different and has varying likes/dislikes.

If we found a sax whose intonation a majority of human testers felt good about, such a tester might help us analyse and compare objectively with others.

Just a thought...

 

[Simon]

Cynic or not, I wouldn't take the opinion of a sax salesguy as the final word on an instrument, regardless of brand. And who is sufficiently unbiased? In this case, the teacher. And guess what - we got to hear from that teacher, who in my opinion has acted in the interests of the pupil... which at the end of the day, is what most teachers are in the teaching game to do: help and advise their students with getting the best sound they can 🙂

All the rest of it, I think, is pure phoney...
Simon

Rogerb wrote:
I think it would be very difficult to find three 'impartial' pro sax players to pass judgement on a single Hanson sax, against the reputation of Yamaha and Selmer (to name but two!)..... it's just too subjective to call, IMO.

Of course you could do 'blind' *listening* tests between this SA-8 and randomly-chosen samples of (similarly-priced?) Selmer and Yam altos, but that would, IMO, tell us very little about the suitability of *this* SA-8 for *this* student, as a long-term purchase.

A promising student wanting a 'sax for life' needs one, I s'pose, which has good intonation, is well-made (and therefore likely to be reliable), has good ergonomics, and is backed by an excellent after-sales service.
And, of course, it must be within the purchaser's 'budget'.

Who is sufficiently unprejudiced-but-qualified to provide advice on all of these factors? :erm:

 

[Pete Thomas]

Yes, as the teacher initially disliked the horn, then liked it after it was fixed - that seems quite an objective opinion as the horn obviously suited the student also..

If I like a saxophone it's because I like it, not because it's "good". Although I can comment objectively on the build quality, the sound and intonation is much more of a subjective issue.

 

[Bobby G]

Pete Thomas wrote:
If I like a saxophone it's because I like it, not because it's "good". Although I can comment objectively on the build quality, the sound and intonation is much more of a subjective issue.

I'll go along with that, it's exactly why in the long run I preferred my scratched 'student' tenor, the YTS23 over the Yani T900 that I recently passed over to Jambo. Intonation is definitely subjective, I guess part of what makes you warm to a horn is how naturally you can make it play in tune given that most horns have varying degrees of intonation or tuning issues.

Cheers, Bob

 

[Linky Lee]

Just to update, I got my Hanson sorted on Wednesday. drove up, played around for a good few hours chucking a few different Hanson's back and forth, some 'new style' crooks. Played with the set-up and what do you know? The standard set-up made it all nice and in-tune except the low Eb and D which were on the flat side, some tampering with them and it's all acceptable as far as I can tell.

I've played along with some backing tracks and it is lovely, not like before where I'd only use the tenor or soprano to do that.

Waiting for my next lesson to play some duets just to make sure.

Also a change of mouthpiece helped. My tone edge 6 bought the sharp notes flatter slightly and the flat notes sharper slightly. Great! The super tone master and S80 were the same (i.e. not as good but consistent with each other).
Luckily the tone edge was my favorite sounding mouthpiece, and a new one of them has made playing the instrument so much more enjoyable again.

worth 8 hours + in the car? I think so.

Oh and Roger, 6 series tenors all sold out so new review, sorry. I tried.