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Saxophone brands: user experience/opinions (yours or of people you trust)

bill5

Senior Member
I can look up tons of internet articles, but as with all articles, I take with a rather huge grain of salt as their motives for touting one or the other can vary and many of them just parrot each other...I'd therefore be interested to hear from those who actually play or know someone well who does and may have some insights, even tho it's impossible to eliminate subjectivity...

What I think I know so far:

Yamaha, Eastman, Selmer, Conn - still appear to generally the top quality saxes
Jupiter - maybe not quite up to the same level, but quality saxes which aren't as pricey either
Chinese knockoffs - can be had on the cheap but in this case, it's almost always you get what you pay for and is likely to be wasted money
 
I’ve had a number of different ones. You’re pretty generally on, but within each brand there’s a wide variety of “quality” across their lines.

I had a Selmer Mark VII Alto for a very long time. The Mark VI alto and tenors are considered “the best”. The VII was great and an amazing dark tone. Loved it. But there’s plenty of other Selmers that aren’t great. And what year? That matters.
Jupiter is fine. Yamaha— I had a YTS-62 tenor. Great. Some other student level ones? Ok, fine. But probably on par with my $200 Chinese horn I bought on Amazon— for way less. I don’t think it’s wasted money, you just keep in mind what you have. How long do you want it to last? What are you doing?
Yaginasawa is also good!
 
I played sax for a while but not these days. Yamaha's are certainly good, but also check out Dave Kessler's horns here: https://www.kesslerandsons.com/
They are Taiwanese but built to spec and a great value. Also Antigua Winds makes excellent soprano horns.
 
Thanks, though this would be alto or tenor only. I heard something that unlike China, Taiwan is making good stuff, though I can't say.
 
I can look up tons of internet articles, but as with all articles, I take with a rather huge grain of salt as their motives for touting one or the other can vary and many of them just parrot each other...I'd therefore be interested to hear from those who actually play or know someone well who does and may have some insights, even tho it's impossible to eliminate subjectivity...

What I think I know so far:

Yamaha, Eastman, Selmer, Conn - still appear to generally the top quality saxes
Jupiter - maybe not quite up to the same level, but quality saxes which aren't as pricey either
Chinese knockoffs - can be had on the cheap but in this case, it's almost always you get what you pay for and is likely to be wasted money
Add to the mid-level Cannonball, which were very popular among the youth wind orchestra crowd about 15 years ago.
 
I played Yamaha and the newer Selmers and a few others. On a gig someone dropped my alto sax and I had to replace it fast for the next day gig. So I went to a local store and tried Yamahas, Yanagisawas, Selmers... at the end I bought an Antigua. Very playable and feels really good. I don't want an instrument that isn't replaceable because I play a lot of acoustic outdoor walking act gigs (ok, except 2020/21). I think today it's not necessary to pay thousands for an old Mark VI.
 
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