Saxophones New sax possibilities

I am in the position of having enough money saved to buy a baritone sax of good quality. My weapon of choice is the tenor sax; I have a Yanisagawa T901. The baritone would not be my primary weapon but still I want a good make.

My question:

Should I keep my Yani 901 and buy an reasonable bari which would get used maybe 10 percent of the time or should I forego the bari and upgrade the tenor to a Selmer Paris (for example) or a top-of-the-range Yani (or other stunningly expensive tenor sax)?

In short, what would be the the best use of my money (no, I don't give to human charities, the above options are all that are on the table for purposes of this argument).

Martin
 
Yup, I agree with Kev, keep the 901 and expand the stable to include a bari as well.

The more expensive Yanis are in my opinion a bit better than the 901, but there really isn't much in it. I play tested the 901 against 902, 991 and 992, and all were good. I preferred the 992, and bought it, but it was really just personal preference and I'd have been happy with any of them. Same goes for Selmers - I wouldn't regard it an upgrade to replace a Yani 901 with a Selmer, just another preference. I also tried the Selmer, and preferred any of the Yanis over it, for some reason. Incidentally, I also tried various Mauriats, Yam 62 and 82, Keilwerth SX and TJ Sig Custom. All were great, and any differences came down to preference.

Baris are loads of fun!
 
Yup, I agree with the posts above. Try looking at a decent modern bari from China or Taiwan such as the Bauhaus-Walstein. It will be based on (i.e. copied from) a good design from a major manufacturer and will probably have decent ergonomics similar to your tenor. I tried the B-W out of interest and was impressed.

I love playing the bari (usually a Selmer SA80 II) but I love all the others too (sopranino to bass) !

Rhys
 
I have two baritones saxes (The Martin Baritone -62 that is very good and one Pennsylvania (Kohlert) also good but not that good ...) and I think the biggest problem to make them sing well, is me! I don't have enough time to practise and play my baris. I think it takes a lot of time to keep up a decent level on bari!! So for me it wouldn't make any diffenerence what sax I use. Good playablity, a "studentbari" level is more than enough for most players! Beside you can do "bari-tricks on your tenor as well! But it always nice to own a baritone!! So I consider myself more a baritonesax owner instead of a bariplayer!

Thomas
 
This is a hard one. Much will depend on your intentions, but they will anyway change once you have a decent baritone.

My tenor is a YTS-82z. With the bari I settled for a YBS-32. I am sure that the tenor has better ergonomics, and sometimes I ask myself whether I should have had a closer look at the YBS-62. Easier said than done where I live, and it would have cost another $2000.

I haven't of course seen a BW. They come highly recommended. A lot of other baris are rather expensive.

If I were in your position, I wouldn't change the tenor set-up, assuming I was happy with it. Once you start to play the bari, it will be nice to have something familiar around.
 
Can't go wrong with a B901! If you're getting a bari, stick with Yani if you're used to the tenor and like it. Baritones don't come much better, well built and powerful.

Having said that I play on a Mauriat B300-DK, not so well balanced, and a bit less ergonomic, but I 'went for the sound'.

Like they said above, it all comes down to preference, and you've got yourself a great tenor already...

Nick
 
I've been thinking along similar lines in terms of exploring a bari. Have a look at John Packer - my teacher plays one of their basic models and praises it. JP do refurbished demo models at about two-thirds the price of new which makes them very affordable.
 
Thank you for your replies, it looks like the Yani tenor will be staying. As to which bari (when I can get the courage to fork out the money), I shall have to investigate. It all depends of course on how much I get for my Yani soprano as that is from where some of the funds will come. I've decided I can't give the sop enough dedication to make it sound nice, it's just too shrieky an instrument. If anyone is interested, it's going on ebay tonight.

Cheers

Martin
 
Hi Martin!

Of possible interest to you regarding the T901 - I Googled "Yanagiswa T901 comparisons" in and found a youtube piece - comparing it with a Selmer Ref36 - quite hard to spot the difference and probably the Yani T901 shaded it - for me it was more integrated between lower and upper registers, whereas the Selmer had a lovely bottom end but sounded thinner above the octave key. Worth trying to find - I'll have another search.

Kind regards
Tom
 
Just in case you might be interested, there is a 1924 Conn Baritone on Gumtree. The instrument is in London.
The advertiser is asking £850, saying it is recently re-padded, history and photos since 1932, original case and articulated G# added.
 

Similar threads... or are they? Maybe not but they could be worth reading anyway 😀

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