Everything Keilwerth Discontinued?
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I suspect it may have something to do with being obligated to also carry the Buffet Crampon line, maybe.
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No, I was just thinking that BC might be consolidating distribution.
I was just speculating.
I was just speculating.
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Well, let's see.....Prowinds has been selling JK's at discounts on ebay saying the models have been discontinued, WWBW has the nickel silver models selling at discounts saying the same thing, Kessler's website says the Dave Liebmann soprano has been discontinued, I googled Keilwerth sopranos today and came across several listings saying the product had been discontinued.....by the way, I didn't mention discounts in my original post, just discontinued models.....
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Now there's a leap. I suppose all of my horns should be in Selmer price territory by now too.
Bought a new gold-plated Buescher 156 tenor lately?
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Last weekend at PMWoodwind, where Dave Liebman was giving a clinic, a Keilwerth rep brought a bunch of new horns for people to try.
As far as the Liebman sop is concerned, they said it was a limited edition and that they only made a dozen or so of them.
They had one of their new sops there (a nice one piece). It was very nice. The rep said it was essentially a prototype of what's coming. They're also redesigning their cases, but he said that they hadn't finished that yet.
...so either the rep was being untruthful, or there will be plenty of Keilwerth saxophones coming soon.
As far as the Liebman sop is concerned, they said it was a limited edition and that they only made a dozen or so of them.
They had one of their new sops there (a nice one piece). It was very nice. The rep said it was essentially a prototype of what's coming. They're also redesigning their cases, but he said that they hadn't finished that yet.
...so either the rep was being untruthful, or there will be plenty of Keilwerth saxophones coming soon.
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That doesn't make sense to me.
They brought the Liebman sop out just before the take over - thus we can assume that things weren't all that rosy. So why go to all the trouble to make a premier-league horn and then limit it to a dozen or so examples?
That would be the sort of exercise carried out by a company in good health, who could afford to offset the resultant cost with the kudos - unless, like the Bugatti Veyron, the thing costs more to make than it costs to buy.
I thought the Liebman sop was an amazing horn, they should have been turning them out by the thousands.
Was it in any way similar to the Liebman?
I guess that's the only way it would make sense - if the new models were a 'cut-down Liebman'. There were many design features far too valuable to simply discard on it, and it would have been sensible to incorporate them into a cheaper model.
Regards,
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Did the new ones have "made in Germany" on them?
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I'm thinking the same thing, Stephen....
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yay
!
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Dave Liebman himself also said that they only make a dozen or so (supposedly distributed fairly evenly between the US and Europe). He said he was originally supposed to personally check out each one, but that didn't happen. He never played any of them - other than his - until that day when he played Paul's.
After the clinic, he play tested the new prototype, Paul Maslin's "Liebman" (listed for sale on his website), and his own side-by-side for all of us to hear. Ironically, he said he liked the prototype better than his horn (and best of the group) - which also seemed to be the consensus of the group of us there.
He introduced them by saying he had "his" horn, Paul's limited edition horn, and (paraphrasing) "what the rest of us can buy off the shelf".
I couldn't actually see which he was playing as I was one of the 25-30 guys outside the door in the "waiting area" during the clinic. It was packed. ...so all I heard was "this is A ....OK this is B ...now this is C".
Talking with the rep afterwards, he said he was happy the Dave like the horn. Dave warned him that he was going to "be honest" when he played it. The rep said he wouldn't have wanted anything else. I guess that's easy to say AFTER Mr. Liebman played it and publicly claimed he preferred it to his own horn. (He used some colorful language not appropriate for me to repeat on a public forum...)
The Liebman is a one-piece straight sop that has the High-F# built up a bit and has a special finish that turns out unique on each horn. The prototype was a one-pice straight sop, and the F# looked/felt normal. It also didn't have the "special finish" of the Liebman. (That's what stood out at first glance.)
I only played the prototype sop. I believe they just called it an SX-90II and said it will be made available as both a one-piece horn and two-piece with both straight and bent necks.
There were several tenors and altos there as well, I just didn't look at them.
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I didn't even look.
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I thought the same when B&S stopped making saxes.
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Seriously , Buffet has bought Keiwerth to make use of the Keilwerth company and facilities and took over 150 people to do so (while laid off another 150) , if they had wanted to buy only the name they would have been waiting for the company to go bust and buy only the name (which would have been a lot cheaper). This is another urban legend.
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