You may be right. Now extend your timeline to the very new future, when the process you reported for Taiwan is repeated in China and the equivalent of the horn you just bought is available at 1/5th the cost.

 

Probably more likely that the big4 end up being made in China (and still cost 4 grand) along with the off brands which sell for a little less (maybe just 2 or 3 grand).

 

That boys got some book larnin'.

 

A frightening amount of learning indeed. But underneath the eloquence lies a whole hunk of truth.The Walstein horns are a prime example.
One only has to look at the auto industry,washing machine manufacture, in fact most things we take for granted in the West. Saxophones are becoming a commodity, the mystique has gone, the veil has been lifted and all the 'Big Four' do in the meantime is increase the price of their threatened species in the attempt to convince us all of the exclusiveness and superiority of their product. They can do little else, wages have to be paid, red tape and regulations have to be adhered to but, the one thing they should do and dont, is ensure that every instrument plays perfectly out of the box. Complacency is the biggest threat to 'The Big Four'
BF

 

A frightening amount of learning indeed. But underneath the eloquence lies a whole hunk of truth.The Walstein horns are a prime example.

A good example of why we shouldn't base our opinions of saxophones on the country of origin. The Chinese Walsteins seem to explode the myth that all Taiwanese horns are better than Chinese horns IMO. Also I have found that some more expensive Taiwanese instruments aren't very good and some cheap ones are. You no longer "get what you pay for".

 

I'm a rank amateur, but my one and only horn is a Taiwanese-made alto which bears a striking resemblance to a Buffet-Crampon 400 series. I like the sound, the look, and the way it plays, but as an amateur the only opinion I want to offer is that if this horn were poorly and cheaply made, I would have noticed by now...I think I've played enough instruments to know cheap when I see it. I'm happy enough with what I paid for it that I'm seriously thinking about a tenor of the same kind.
So I'm kind of glad my musical mid-life crisis came after the Taiwanese trend started. And to follow up on saxguy007's last point, who cares about where they're made, it's about good stuff becoming available to people who can't spare several thousand for something that's *probably* even better.

 

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I really don't see the Big Four making a dent in the industry with NEW horns in the future (emphasis placed on NEW; the vintage market will continue to remain strong IMO). More people will see that they don't have to take out a loan to buy a pro-quality horn. As upsetting as it is for some people to see the market shift towards lower cost pro-quality horns being contructed in Asia, it is hard to deny them credit for the calibur of horns being produced.

If the Big Four want to survive they need to distinguish themselves as being new and innovative; they can't cling to their past success stories forever, no matter how good they were.

 

i was told today that Selmer Paris Horns are now only ASSEMBLEd in France, but the tubes and keys, etc are manufactured in China. Is this true?

 

no.....

 

I knew it would happen sooner or later. Wished I would have waited till now before I'd tried Tiawanese horns and I might have not had such a bad experience with CBs...Look at Yamaha, their saxes started really getting a name for themselves when I was in high school and I'm approaching my 30yr reunion. When I was a senior, Yamaha's upright piano was considered the best studio piano on the market. Yamaha is a consistently good musical instrument manufacturer and you get what you pay for; I new it was just a matter of time before the rest of Asia would catch up.

 

I'm not sure if paradigm shifts have cusps, but you have definitely got GAS!

Rory

 

I dunno 'bout that boyz learnin'...there ain't no bricks 'n mortars in no saxamaphone I ever saw...

 

you seem to be basing your commodity conclusion from buying ONE taiwanese horn. Taking your admittance that the variance for horn quality can be high, one good horn is hardly statistically significant enough for any conclusion, let alone commodity status.

What you have may be an outlier.
Your high variance thought also negates the commodity idea.

Musical instruments as commodities? hardly. 100s of years later even with mass produced pianos, trumpets, violins, etc, there are no commoditized musical instruments (at least not that I know of).

 

Actually, I have purchased FIVE Taiwanese horns, and each has played and held up very well.

The mail order Barone just took it to another level.

But yes, I am open to the possibility that I am jumping the gun, here.

I was/am honestly interested if anyone else is thinking the same thing about the future of how we get our saxophones.

However, it seems that the eggheaded way I wrote my idea has distracted the discussion, so I went back and edited my idea to make it an easier read.

So what is the future of expensive sax sales in music stores? If you had an opportunity to invest in Selmer or Yanigisawa, would you do it? It just seems like a losing bet to me.

 

Based on my last visit to one the largest musical Instruments event in the whole world (Frankfurt musikmesse) and after having purchased a number of Taiwanese and some Chinese instruments the production of the majority of the brands present on the market is of the highest quality and the only thing which one could still blame to the Taiwanese and Chinese factories is that they have failed to come up with some major contribution to innovation (although Stephanhouser, Cannonball and Unison have done some attempts in this direction). I am convinced that this will only take some time and then we will see innovation coming up from Taiwan and China too.

 

Take the analogous automobile industry, even when japanese manufacturers caught up with US and European ones decades ago on the quality curve, and even when they were priced competitively, cars are hardly commodities.

In general, the internet has created a new distribution channel for products and services that has cannabilized brick and mortal shops to a large degree. This is hardly limited to the saxophone market. But there is still a niche for brick and mortar shops offering repair services, and even some retailing and trading of horns. The market pie is surely big enough for that.

In terms of the "big four" sax manufacturers, new low-priced/consistent-quality players int he market will surely vy for market share. That's the nature of any free market. Again look at the once dominant GM and what Honda, Toyota, and other firms have done to it decades later. To stay competitive the "big four" will have to shift their manufacturing, operations, marketing, and distribution strategies.. Maybe acquire some of the new entrants. The world's the limit on what will play out in the short and long-term future. But I'd agree, the market is shifting, as do most markets.

 

In general, you are seeing effects of the increasingly globalization of our economy. Firms (including saxophone distributors) naturally search for inexpensive places to manufacture and assemble products in order to lower costs and increase profits. Historically this has been in nations with emerging or maturing economies. (Japan and Taiwan in previous generations). Once firms (your "big four") become established, they can charge a premium price for their products. But what happens is as economies mature, local wages rise, and workers start looking for more complex products and services to produce. Therefore, costs eventually rise significantly and firms have to search for new places to manufacture (i.e.: China) to stay competitive. Young economies cannot produce sophisticated products at high and consistent qualities, but maturing ones can. Hence, although 1st generation Chinese horns were inferior, subsequent generations have matured.

As the "big four" shift operations to China, they inevitably teach firms there how to manufacture the instruments on their own, and hence, small competitors (Walstein for example) will emerge, attempting to supplant established market leaders. If the smaller competitors can achieve the same scale of efficiency in manufacture, as well access the same distribution channels, then the "big four" do have something to worry about. In times like these, the dominant large firms usually acquire emerging competitors, or focus on developing strategic capabilities that smaller firms cannot match (greater scales of efficiency, brand leverage, etc.).

In a world with improving communication and transportation technologies and also developing social infrastructure, today firms have unprecedented access to the whole world as a playing field. It now requires lower investment capital to access global manufacturing centers, with the byproduct of lowering entry costs for new players. So established giants like your "big four" face many more new competitors than in the past.

On the lowering price of horns, in order to gain a foothold in the market, smaller firms price horns low to steal market share. Eventually they may raise prices incrementally back to what the market will pay. This is called "penetration pricing". As manufacturing costs rise, the entrants will probably have to increase prices in order stay in business. In the end, almost nobody wants to enter a price war. So prices for your new horn chinese and taiwanese horn companies 'may' rise to big four premium levels. who knows?

Eventually china's economy will mature enough that manufaturing will shift to other emerging economies, and we'll see the same story unfold again.

What I personally worry about is the shrinking (my assumption here) market for saxophones. Compare the popularity of horn-playing 50 years ago to today's dominance of electronic music. Smaller demand for horns will discourage innovation in horn production and selling. Prices may remain high. And more importantly, 'jazz' music (my passion) will fade into museum mediocrity. What I want is for someone to take the lead in investing in developing music programs for schools and local communities. Not just for comfortable suburban schools, but inner cities and low income areas. It would be nice to provide much more instruments, teachers, and classes to children. Teach the next generations the beauty of acoustic music, jazz, and horn playing; increase demand, and reinviorgrate the market. Make our world a more creative and beautiful place.

 

What I want is for someone to take the lead in investing in developing music programs for schools and local communities. Not just for comfortable suburban schools, but inner cities and low income areas. It would be nice to provide much more instruments, teachers, and classes to children. Teach the next generations the beauty of acoustic music, jazz, and horn playing; increase demand, and reinviorgrate the market. Make our world a more creative and beautiful place.

Amen to that. It's (almost) exactly what I am trying to do with my current fundraising for Band on the Wall), though I won't go so far as to say I'm taking the lead. I found Band on the Wall as that is exactly what I was searching for to channel the money into. My current work is aimed at disabled musicians but as things expand it will be for disadvantaged people in general.

What really excites me is to find some manufacturers who are interested in helping with this, I may have found one already (a very high profile one to boot), but now that really good quality instruments are available at reasonable prices, we should all celebrate that the saxophone can become something that need no longer be the domain of the privileged.

 

I too believe that the woodwind (not to mention brass!) market is in perilous decline. At Frankfurt I had to go to meet someone at a Hall other than 3 and 1 (where the woodwind and brass are.......well........ hall 3 is in common with the beastly drums and 1 has only one floor for thw woodwind and brass.), anyway Hall 4 had several floors of guitars and amplifiers and it was by far more crowded than any woodwind hall at the fair. Woodwinds and brass survive because of the schools supporting marching bands, some players also turn to jazz but there is no doubt that the market of this type of music is on the shrink!

 

I think there is a large and steady transition in place. With automobiles there were certain events they made people take notice of changes all at once. For people in the USA, the gas crisis in the mid-1970s made people notice the quality and fuel economy of the Japanese imports, and I believe the current difficulties of GM and Chrysler in particular will make the current time a transition, such that Americans remember pre-2008 and post-2009 as being different eras of American car manufacturing.

I don't know if there will be any big events (akin to the 1970s gas crisis or the 2008 financial crisis) that will cause people to see a big dividing line or cusp in the history of production and sales of saxes. I am not any kind of expert on this, but I would think that the people who work in Market Management for the big firms like Selmer and Yamaha are seeing market share being eroded by the lower cost Asian producers. I recall when I was ready to buy my pro horn in the 1970s there was no question what I should buy. Among the people I talked to (private teacher, band director, friends) there was no question that I should buy a Selmer - the only question was to which store I should go to buy it. Yes, there were those who would look at other brands, but that was a smaller percentage, especially among alto players like me. It's got to be a very different story today, but people rely heavily on recommendations and word of mouth, and I think it is a steady change in the type of advice that is dispensed, and received.

 

My point is that paying the premium for a big four sax from a music store is looking increasingly irrational to me.

Do you mean more irrational than buying 5 copies of one off the internet?

 

hah! Good point. Let me qualify my argument-

If the ergos of brand x (which would be pretty identical across horns of brand X) are just off for you, or if the horns of X are so similar and consistent that dislike of one is very likely to mean dislike of another then no, it does not seem rational to me to make repeated test-trial orders.

The kicker is, that the player will never know how consistent a brand is...

What I'm saying is that going for internet horn X five times is still more rational PROVIDED that there is at least some portion of individual horns of internet brand X will satisfy you. It seems strange, but do the math:

Let's say only 40% of internet brand X horns would sound good enough to keep and move forward with, odds are that you'd find a winner in three tries. If the shipping were $40 each way, that's $200 of additional investment to identify and obtain a $1500 Barone or TK Melody horn that would give you about as much enjoyment as a $3k Mauriat or a $4K+ Selmer in a regular store. Still more rational (assuming you're limiting your purchase to new horns only).

Here's another spin- let's say that it's a long shot that a horn of internet brand X would satisfy you-- maybe only ten percent of the horns. Would you be willing to invest $300 for a 50/50 chance at saving $1500-2000? Logic dictates yes, and laboratory economic decision-making studies indicate that people will risk modest assets for a chance to avoid large losses.

Will people still keep trying after one horn was just "meh?" Probably not, since most will assume dislike of one means he or she will dislike all the others (and this might be true), despite how there could be random variations in how well a horn seals or stays adjusted in shipping...

Great thoughts all, especially on the gradual trend-like nature of this phenomenon, as well as theories about how we got where we are!

 

What an excellent thread. I don't know that I can offer anything new to this thread, but I did want to chime in and say that I have received a PB MAC 20 that while I expected it to be nice based on other reviews, really blew me away once it arrived.

When I received it I wanted to take it in to have it looked over. The repair man was very skeptical about working on a non-standard, non big four horn. His opinion was completely different after having seen the horn. BTW it had no leaks and played like a champ after removing a bit of tacky residue from the plastic sleave on the octave mechanism.

He has been working as a Woodwind and Brasswind tech for over 20 years and really knows his stuff, so when he changed his tune I took note.

I think its important to take a chance on something new if you take a little skeptical time with your research.

 

I was mulling this over sommore (I really have to stop)

Assuming each time a player tries internet horn X and DOESN'T like it, it reduces the odds he or she would like another individual horn of that model by half, the diminishing returns/odds of taking a chance on a trial shipment would probably limit it to just a few tries.

Still though, the price differences are becoming staggering, such that it really behooves a player interested in a new horn to at least try one of the new direct-order Asian horns that have a decent repute.

I really agree with Pete T that this new shift or opportunity really opens the door to a whole new population of people who can for the first time afford a durable horn with a nice, professional tone, impeccable intonation, and smooth key action. I always thought it ironic that cheaper student horns are the ones often LEAST likely to reinforce the enjoyment of initial attempts to play the sax! (Or really any other wind instrument). While it's probably overkill to give every 6th grader a Barone, if we did, we'd probably have more kids still playing their axe in 9th grade instead of giving up in frustration... (and we'd also a lot of second-hand Barones for sale to the rest of us!)

For the longest time, I've envied guitarists, who are able to get a Mexican-made Fender Stratocaster that one could actually gig with for only $400 or so. I think the ranks of amateur sax players would have multiply by ten (or more) to get that kind of demand for that economy of scale though.

However, even $1300 or so for a new Taiwan mail-order tenor still beats the heck out of having to spend $3k or more.

Now, I'm off to practice-- with my Barone...

Jim

 

IMO there are a few important issue that are missing.

First is a cultural issue. I guess in your (OP's) area, it is common to buy a saxophone from the internet, whether it's from a store, a supplier like the Taiwanese, etc. Where I am it is rare. Not that people wouldn't like a much cheaper sax, they definitely would, but they don't like the idea of buying an instrument they can't try first (that means trying it before paying for it). Sure, some do it, but just not many.

For the other issue, the car analogy is pretty good. Some people really are passionate about cars, and really want a specific car, possibly very expensive one. I don't care about cars, and I can't understand why someone would prefer a very expensive car. When I drove a couple (when visiting friends abroad), if anything, it was very uncofmrotable and a little.

But some people are not passionate about cars, instead they are passionate about music and the instrument they play. Buying less expensive but very good instruments from the internet can be a great idea, especially for students, etc. But when you choose an instrument, there are a lot of rational decisions to make. Is it good quality, does it play in tune, is it comfortable, etc. etc. and all those things can be very good. But there is also an important but iretional decision. It is simply how you feel when you play the instrument. This has nothing to do with how good or bad anything else, it is something you feel when you play the instrument. It is a case of the whole worth more than the parts. You can analyze each part, and of course they should be good, but the whole is something you just feel.

More advanced (i.e. high level, professional, etc.) players are pretty particular about the instrument they play. At least here, people don't just want a good instrument. We don't have such a huge selection here, but people still try everything they can get their hands on.... new, used, doesn't matter. Then when finally finding the instrument they want, they buy it and hold on to it.

Sometimes it doesn't matter if it's from Europe, Japan, China or Taiwan, doesn't matter if it's new, used, from a store, etc. Would I be willing to pay more (maybe a lot more) for an instrument I can buy in a store, try it first, KNOW that I want it, because it has everything I want? Definitely!

I recently tried a gazzilion instruments in Musikmesse. Many were very good, great even. I can't even count the number of instruments that I would have no problem playing and would be pretty happy with. Some were more expensive than my instrument and some were less expensive. But none gave me the same feeling I get with my own instrument. If you get that from a Taiwanese, Chinese, whatever instrument.... great!

 

All I can say is: Sold Selmer :? Bought T.K. Melody

B

 

ilovethe sax hit it on the nail. He has a very lucid understanding of globalization. Good for you! As far as the saxes you buy, it depends on you and your understanding of the implications of globalization. You see, this puts the workers in paris assembling saxes in direct competition with their asian counter parts. Workers in paris may be making a decent living while worker in asian are probably getting squeezed in order to deliver the quality of sax you are referring to. So, if we switch to buying cheap pro altos from asia, the workers in france will be laid off and replaced by cheaper workers in a country where labor is cheaper, or we will see that company go out of business. It's a very complex issue, and it's hard to say how this should affect your decision in buying saxes. I would say this as a general rule: if you live in france, don't buy an asian sax, buy a french made sax. If you live in the us, for god's sake, buy a us made sax and stop exploiting cheap labor! Or prepare yourself to see unemployment in your country!

 

I would say this as a general rule: if you live in france, don't buy an asian sax, buy a french made sax. If you live in the us, for god's sake, buy a us made sax and stop exploiting cheap labor! Or prepare yourself to see unemployment in your country!

In many ways I agree with and applaud this, but on some circles it would be frowned upon as "protectionism". Purely buying from your own country out of patriotism is a double edged sword, it doesn't help your country make a name in the global economy. Kind of like tribalism, you look after your own and stick together, which is how many species survive, but it doesn't help with the bigger picture.

Also, it is true I'm sure that French workers earn ore, but it could be true that their cost of living is proportionally higher, so in the end they may be no better off. The standard of living is rising in the far east, and the only way they will every rise to what we have is by competing and industrialising. They do that by selling at lower prices at the moment so by buying their products, although we may be subsidising a system that pays its workers a bit less, we are actually helping them to get to the same level as us. (As long as we are not paying for sweatshop labour and bad employment practices, which happen in any country anyway)

Some would say that is not a good thing for us, I believe we are all deserve a reasonably equal slice of the pie.

Yes it's a complex issue.

 

America used to be Europe's "3rd World". There will always be a "3rd World". The lives of the proserous (if even relatively speaking) are ALWAYS built on the backs of slavery, sweat shops, and those less fortunate.

 

I'm sorry, you should not completely insulate your country from the global economy. Here's a lesson from history, the once mighty Ancient China decided to close its borders centuries ago. Cross-national commercial and cultural exchanged halted, and the empire fell fatally behind economically, technologically, socially, artistically, etc.. Western imperialism of China (once a proud empire) by the late 19th century was a quite a lesson. Borders should be open to the free-flow exchange of ideas and commerce.

Anyways, from a free-market economic perspective, if you insulate your economy, you stagnate your economic growth and raise domestic prices. Say you are a firm protected domestically with tarrifs and embargos, etc. If you no longer need to worry about competing with foreign firms, you can afford to charge higher prices and care less about the quality of your product. So while throughout the rest of the world, firms competing with one anohter have figured out ways to cut costs and develop even better products, your own firm, due to lack of motivational incentives, has fallen way behind. Meanwhile everyone is forced to pay higher prices for your goods than they had to due also to the fact that there is less supply for the given market demand, and the net effect is inflationary for your economy... higher prices for everybody. Inflation will devalue your currency, and lower your exchange rate. Consequently your currency can buy even less foreign goods. The good thing is, with your products now seeming cheaper due to the lower exchange rate, there is now more international demand for your goods. But since you pissed off national trading partners with your protectionist policies, they won't buy your goods anyway. =P In the end, over-protectionism does your own national economy much harm.

Anyways, i'm rusty with this stuff, so there's probably a ton of flaws in that model i outlined. but that's the gist of it. Of course, this whole topic gets political and debateable.

 

Here's a lesson from history, the once mighty Ancient China decided to close its borders centuries ago. Cross-national commercial and cultural exchanged halted, and the empire fell fatally behind economically, technologically, socially, artistically, etc.. Western imperialism of China (once a proud empire) by the late 19th century was a quite a lesson. Borders should be open to the free-flow exchange of ideas and commerce.

Of course the tons of Opium that was being "pushed" into their pipes by the western folk throughout this period had absolutely nothing to do with their decline...