[monzamess]

I am an amateur. I played in high school and am now playing for fun, maybe considering joining community band.

I have a "Mexi-Conn" 20M alto from 1970, bought in 1991. I think it has persistent leak problems even after having one shop go through it. I can only "honk" out the low notes; I realize this could just be me, but I can play low notes well on other saxes.

I've done lots of searches and found that the 20M is regarded as junk to some people, as an OK student instrument to others. The leaking problems are pretty common it seems.

In my position, would you put any more money into this horn, or just look for another?

 

[littlemanbighorn]

Replace! I played one up until college and after trying some other horns realized how awful it was.

 

[ChuBerry47]

They are not even Conns! Charles Gerald Conn would have come back from the dead to haunt the people who made those! Throw it in the trash, or set the curse no somebody else by selling it! By a real one!

 

[Jonathan C.]

It would make a nice wall hanging

Get a better horn.
Whats your budget?

 

[SactoPete]

Take it to a tech and get an estimate first. Play some other horns. There are options, to be sure, but I'd think long and hard before I go dropping some serious coin on a sax until you are sure you need it.

Whatever you do, don't spend a lot. If you decide it's not worth repairing the Conn (and I wouldn't if the tech told me it would be anything over about $100 personally, although I've never played one so I don't know how good or bad they are (on a side note, I'm willing to bet most of the ranting about how horrible these are comes from people that have never played one, or maybe played a torn-up one at their high school, so take any comments with a grain of salt)). If you do get a different horn, I'd recommend you get yourself a YAS-23 or a Vito, either of which you can get in decent-playing shape for well under $500 (hence the no-more-than-$100 recommendation for the Conn).

Pete

 

[monzamess]

Thanks for the advice. I'll mull it over. Since I already had one shop try to fix it with no discernable improvement (assuming they didn't just rip me off), I'm going to start looking at a replacement.