Those numbers at the Selmer Factory are kind of weird. 300 tenors and 300 sopranos.
The soprano has got to sell less then a tenor. I know that most of these altos will end up in the hands of students and the tenor is considered the working mans horn, but the soprano is a rather eccentric little guy that not too many people really play. That and the selmer sopranos are really expensive, the market would be small just for that reason.
I'd bet JK really builds a fraction of the other makers. It's a horn that doesn't fit the other big three. When JK is included in this group, I don' t think it's because of their production numbers, but their quality and their build location. Europe/Germany/Japan as opposed to China and so forth where quality is questionable.
The soprano has got to sell less then a tenor. I know that most of these altos will end up in the hands of students and the tenor is considered the working mans horn, but the soprano is a rather eccentric little guy that not too many people really play. That and the selmer sopranos are really expensive, the market would be small just for that reason.
I'd bet JK really builds a fraction of the other makers. It's a horn that doesn't fit the other big three. When JK is included in this group, I don' t think it's because of their production numbers, but their quality and their build location. Europe/Germany/Japan as opposed to China and so forth where quality is questionable.
