[reallywantasbaalto]

What are your thoughts? If you have any of the goin for under 350 or do, give us a buzz

 

[JackLi]

Vintage Links are generally not as popular on alto as the Vintage NY Meyers.

I did speak to three different refacers and they did say the facings on the Aizen's are actually not that accurate. One of them Sampled an SO Alto, and a NY Alto and they both had facings that were asymmetrical. and the other two refacers refaced a LS Tenor, and SOP mouthpiece and again they had asymmetrical facings as well.

I have played an old Ishimori mouthpiece (not the current series) and it responded amazingly well. And the facing was checked to be accurate and it was, way more than the Aizen's.

 

[thejazzyfly]

Aizen are ridiculous compared to Ishimori Jazz mpc potential (HR) (Metal => I never tried)
Ishimori mpc's are top nutch current mpc's and they worth every penny

 

[wrxguyusa]

Considering Ishimori is around 60% pricier than Aizen, you would expect some better QC. The engineer in me really wishes to do a study to determine just how much variance of a mouthpiece's dimensions is allowable before it effects playability. Just because you can measure a difference doesn't mean it will make a change it the playability and sound. I suspect tolerance varies by person so much that a study would not be sufficient without hundreds of sax players involved.

Since I won't be able to justify Ishimori prices for my hobby, I'll have to hope the second hand Aizen I just bought will be made well enough to play. I have two untouched Links (tenor STM NY & alto TE) that work just fine for me.

 

[soybean]

I'm very happy with my Aizens (3 of them) but haven't tried Ishimori. The comment about being asymetrical might be relevant or not, depending how it plays (bottom line). Aizen NY have replaced all other alto mouthpieces for 90% of my work.