do any new Conn tenor good?

[lamgigi]

many people said that Conn 6m and 10m is good, but how about the new Conn product?

[CodyW]

Most people don't consider the new conns good as the older ones and I agree. Conn moved to mexico and the quality control and choice of materials went downhill. I think they came out recently with a new horn trying to like recreate the 10m. I believe that the verdict though was that the earlier horns are still the better horns.

[Stacey]

Conn horns are actually produced in Nogales, ARIZONA, rather than Nogales, Mexico. That's a very common misstatement (one that I was guilty of myself until about 6 months ago).

I guess it doesn't help any that many people call these lower-quality student horns "MexiConns". NogaleConns, maybe; MexiConns, no.

And yes, supposedly Conn has come out with a higher-quality tenor recently, but I know very little about it. It's been discussed somewhere here in the Conn section, though.

[LBAjazz]

Then why do they have the word "Mexico" engraved on them ?

[MonchMan]

My understanding is that most of the parts are produced in Mexico, and assembled in the US.

[Wicked Good]

The new Conn tenor is the 34M. There are plenty of posts in the Conn section about it - search for "34M" to find them.

Does anyone know if alto and bari versions are forthcoming?

[CodyW]

Is Nogales one of those fringe cities where they bring in mexicans to work during the day? I believe they are called maquilladoras. I know the spelling of maquilladoras is wrong, but I think this is what alot of companies are now doing to get better profits from cheaper labor.

[Hornlip]

This is off-subject, but. . .

from what I understand, the proper "Maquilladoras" are actually on the Mexico-side of the border. Mexico's been pretty lax about little things like environmental protection and other regulations, so some US corporations have set up shop just over the border to take advantage of that. From what I understand a lot of them are Mexican companies who either manufacture parts for various consumer goods that are consequently assembled in the U.S., or manufactured wholly in Mexico. The jam 'em up next to border to shorten transportation costs/time as much as possible.

The "Maqs" can actually pay pretty good wages, but the labor market is super-tight & labor unions pretty weak. So if you screw up or make trouble, there's a million just like you waiting for your job outside.

[Stacey]

I'm afraid I can't address the source of the labor in the Conn factory, or the source of the parts. All I know is that the UMI factory that produces modern Conn horns is in Nogales, Arizona (which is not to be confused with Nogales, Mexico, even though the Arizona city is indeed near the national border).

Somewhere (I don't recall if it is in this forum or the previous SOTW forum), someone posted a bunch of questions, answers, and thoughts from his tour of the UMI factory. That might be a good resource for those who want more info about the factory. As I recall, the Plant Manager at the Nogales facility was a man named - I thought this was a great name for a businessman - Tom Greed. (This puts him in the same club as the Mechanical Engineering professor I knew named Andrew Mech, and the Electrical Engineering Professor name Dave Voltmer.)

[saxtub]

Are these Conns a result of Bill Clinton's NAFTA program? A friend of mine bought a then new 1995 Ford Escort car which was assembled in Mexico. Neither Mexico or Asia has to worry about labor unions, OSHA regulations, overtime pay, paid vacations, health insurance, pensions, holidays off,coffee breaks, and weekends off. Most of the laborers don't make enough money to buy the items that they produce. All in all it's good for American business and the stockholders. We all know that it's good for Selmer,Yamaha,Keilwerth, Cannonball(owned by a couple from Utah), Unison, and Yanagisawa.

[Stacey]

I just found some interesting stuff on the UMI (Conn's parent company) website.

Apparently, sometime between 1969 and 1980, Conn moved its headquarters from Indiana to Illinois, and moved reed instrument manufacturing to Nogales, Arizona.

In 1985, Daniel Henkin, who owned Conn from 1980 to 1985, sold Conn and the parent company UMI was formed. UMI includes a wide variety of companies/products, and did have some holdings in Mexico. However, in 1987 UMI moved all its operations out of Mexico, with "clarinets, saxophones, and small brass" moving to the Nogales, Arizona, facility.


This would seem to indicate that:

1. There may have been some UMI saxes made in Mexico, under a name other than Conn.
2. The "Mexican saxes" do not seem to have ever included Conn saxes.
3. The production of Conn saxes in Arizona predates NAFTA, probably by a couple of decades. Also, since Arizona is not part of Mexico, the actual assembly of the saxes in Arizona would seem to be relatively unaffected by NAFTA. LOL


As always seems to be the case with Conn, the deeper you dig, the more conflicting stories you find. If, PERHAPS, there were some (non-Conn) UMI saxes made in Mexico, then that might explain why there are Conn saxes from Nogales, Arizona with "Mexico" stamped on some of the parts - the Conn saxes and Mexican-made saxes may have shared some common parts. Or I may have gone off into left field again. Anyway, I think it's at least a plausible explanation, especially given UMI's high-volume focus on student quality instruments; if I were their Operations Manager, I would certainly try to commonize components and subassemblies as much as possible.