[Keith Ridenhour]

I was searching for her looking for an older YAS 23 or 21 or vito. But she got impatient and went to the cos co website and ordered this horn/ 420 I think with shipping. I expected it to be colorful junk. Its not bad. It sturdy , plays down to Bb and comes with a year warranty for anything that is a problem. (I have no idea where it goes if it needs something done. ) anyway, I was expection a nightmare that I'd have to deal with but the horn plays well for the price. It comes with a selmer C copy piece ( I think the whole horn is a selmer copy) and has some funky stuff going from eb to low C but other than that so far so good. Got her started on long tones and learning the horn . So I'll report if it falls apart but it looks like a low end taiwan horn? K

 

[andre251]

I have a student with one of these. The upper and lower octaves are not in tune with each other. The student had it taken to a local famous tech who said the interior of the instrument would need to be changed to fix this issue.
Looks great, nice tone, nice key touches and mechanical action, horrible intonation. I would suggest to check the intonation with some octave exercises.

 

[milandro]

At the price they sell these things it cannot be made in Taiwan. Unless they would sell it at a loss.

 

[1saxman]

China or Viet-Nam.
Anyway, make a thorough check of the pads for leaks and keep in mind that some intonation can be helped by adjusting key opening heights. On a Chinese soprano, the low Bb was sharp. Not much you can do about that, right? Looking it over, I found the low Bb closed properly. The low B closed properly by itself - but when using the low Bb key, the B did not close all the way - a piece of felt under the table keys needed to be a tad bit thicker. This helped the Bb intonation a lot. So if you didn't know about that leak and tested the Bb octaves, they would be off.
There are many possible causes but typically these saxes are not bad if you're willing to work with them or have it done. They usually come without having been tweaked to be as good as they can, so somebody should really go through it before a student gets used to adjusting to mechanical intonation problems that could be fixed.
You could find anything wrong with it like the neck not fitting properly, octave system out of whack, loose screws, long rods floating above their guides (use thicker cork in the stirrup), loose pads, etc., etc., but I haven't seen one yet that could not be played, given some attention.

 

[andre251]

China or Viet-Nam.
Anyway, make a thorough check of the pads for leaks and keep in mind that some intonation can be helped by adjusting key opening heights.

I am assuming this is intended to me?

This is why I had him take it to a tech to try and see if key heights could fix it. I also had him try warburton modulate system necks to try out different neck tapers and receivers. No fix to the intonation. This student is a VERY good player. Probably better than most of the posters on this forum, and got into big universities to do pre-med. Very smart and talented high school senior. We tried all possibilities and something inside needs to be changed according to the tech to make it play in tune. So to the OP, please check the octaves yourself. If yours doesn’t have this issue, your student might just have a great sax! For my student, unfortunately it hurts his playing a lot. We are trying to get the funds up to get him a better instrument now. He has a few contests in the spring against mostly very wealthy kids with yamaha Customs and Selmers.

 

[Keith Ridenhour]

Thanks Andre, I'll check it against a tuner next lesson K