I found my tenor this way with my old studio partner. We plumped for the same horn , head and shoulders above the others. Tried about 8 at Howarth.
This may sound a bit daft - or perhaps not - but the only opinion that matters is mine. If it feels right and sounds right to me then it's right. If no one else agrees then they're clearly wrong.
When I first started looking for a new/replacement tenor I had a list of horns in my price range that I thought would do the job ... and hated them all. Yamahas, Yanis and Selmers felt horribly wrong in my hands. Only the Raw felt and sounded remotely acceptable but to be honest it was less a horn I liked and more a horn I didn't hate.
So I started looking further afield; as well as classic horns (the only two renowned models I didn't get the chance to try were a Conn 10m and a MkVI) I also tried other modern manufacturers such as Eastman (I thought their £3,000 52nd Street was on par with a £900 Trevor James SR but with sticky rolled tone holes), Mauriat (who I thought were actually quite good) and, eventually, the Keilwerth MKX that I instantly fell in love with.
I went through the whole process again a couple of months later because I didn't really want to spend well over three grand on 'just' an instrument. Unfortunately all that happened was that I confirmed what I already knew - there was only one sax for me.
Luckily 18 months later a second-hand one appeared for sale (the first, and last, one I'd seen). Even better, it was going for a fraction of the price of a new one. So much so that I thought it may have been stolen (it wasn't).
And I still love it. I seem to be in a very small minority (to say the least
) but it is the best sax out there as far as I'm concerned.
Easy way to avoid that: don't try any horns more than 10% or so out of your budget.
Where would the fun in that be?
In all seriousness, it has to be a pleasure to play. Bizarrely the action on the Selmer is still superb - absolutely no play at all. It's only the intonation that's a problem. Whatever I get to replace it needs to feel just as solid and precise under the fingers but with vastly superior intonation.
Seems to me (correct me if I am wrong) you play more Tenor than Alto anyway, right (?)
That's only really because the Model 26 is so challenging to play. In the R&B band it's about 66% tenor / 33% alto although it's slowly edging towards parity. Again, I'm favouring the tenor as much because of practicality as suitability for the song.
FWIW - and you probably know this - those old Selmer models DO have some market value...there is a subset of folks who want 'em...
I don't think I could ever sell it. Apart from it being a more than acceptable back-up, it's quite special to me on its own right.