“I play sax but mostly it plays me”
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I recently sold a ton of equipment and was in the market for an inexpensive curved soprano as a back-up to my more expensive TK Melody straight soprano.
My requirements were that the ebay seller had to be well established as a saxophone seller (CE WINDS is), the majority of the body/bell had to be bronze or copper and it had to have modern ergonomics (ie: Selmer style key set-up).
This Chinese made instrument really appealed to me because the price at $500, the copper bell and bow and the hand engraving looked at least in the HD pics to be of higher quality than most of the Chinese sopranos offered on ebay.
This particular stenciled model is sold by a Chinese company/ebay seller name of TAISHAN, and from what reviews I have seen most people are extremely happy. I purchased this directly from CE Winds as a slightly used floor demo with an aftermarket case after seeing as a listing on ebay.
Here are pictures. Courtesy of CE WINDS. http://photobucket.com/JBCurvy
It appears to be a direct clone of a Yanigasawa 992 Bronze model but w/o the underslung key and left side bell keys.
It has real leather pads and metal resonators and genuine pearl key touches. Blue tempered springs, adjustment bar above the G# tone hole, Teardrop front F nat.3, absolutely no loose rods. Everything seems to be in order for quality and durability but some hard gig time will tell whether this will hold true.
It appears to have real wood cork and very high quality pointed rod screws in the hinge rods and the ergonomics are extremely similar to most Asian altos and sopranos with the exception of the left pinky cluster which sits just slightly lower and will take some adjustment to get used to.
The tone holes are level and there is not one bit of burring or roughness near them. All pads are seated correctly and I was able to play this directly from the time of delivery throughout the entire range of the horn with my Ponzol M1 and my Otto Link STM. The gold and copper finish is as good as the Taiwanese high-end horns.
The tone is incredibly warm and less shrill than my straight soprano that was built in Taiwan but that has always been my experience with curved sopranos and did not surprise me.
Intonation is extremely good and as everybody know sopranos are most squirrelly in the upper range of the horn but this one plays very close to in tune and plays easily up to F#3.
The keys are no more soft metal than many of the sopranos I have played and owned, and I although I will not argue that Yanigasawa sopranos are some of the best in the world and the keys are less pliant than this I would say for the difference in price of nearly $2500 this was a no brainer no more than I play soprano.
Hope this review will help.
BB
My requirements were that the ebay seller had to be well established as a saxophone seller (CE WINDS is), the majority of the body/bell had to be bronze or copper and it had to have modern ergonomics (ie: Selmer style key set-up).
This Chinese made instrument really appealed to me because the price at $500, the copper bell and bow and the hand engraving looked at least in the HD pics to be of higher quality than most of the Chinese sopranos offered on ebay.
This particular stenciled model is sold by a Chinese company/ebay seller name of TAISHAN, and from what reviews I have seen most people are extremely happy. I purchased this directly from CE Winds as a slightly used floor demo with an aftermarket case after seeing as a listing on ebay.
Here are pictures. Courtesy of CE WINDS. http://photobucket.com/JBCurvy
It appears to be a direct clone of a Yanigasawa 992 Bronze model but w/o the underslung key and left side bell keys.
It has real leather pads and metal resonators and genuine pearl key touches. Blue tempered springs, adjustment bar above the G# tone hole, Teardrop front F nat.3, absolutely no loose rods. Everything seems to be in order for quality and durability but some hard gig time will tell whether this will hold true.
It appears to have real wood cork and very high quality pointed rod screws in the hinge rods and the ergonomics are extremely similar to most Asian altos and sopranos with the exception of the left pinky cluster which sits just slightly lower and will take some adjustment to get used to.
The tone holes are level and there is not one bit of burring or roughness near them. All pads are seated correctly and I was able to play this directly from the time of delivery throughout the entire range of the horn with my Ponzol M1 and my Otto Link STM. The gold and copper finish is as good as the Taiwanese high-end horns.
The tone is incredibly warm and less shrill than my straight soprano that was built in Taiwan but that has always been my experience with curved sopranos and did not surprise me.
Intonation is extremely good and as everybody know sopranos are most squirrelly in the upper range of the horn but this one plays very close to in tune and plays easily up to F#3.
The keys are no more soft metal than many of the sopranos I have played and owned, and I although I will not argue that Yanigasawa sopranos are some of the best in the world and the keys are less pliant than this I would say for the difference in price of nearly $2500 this was a no brainer no more than I play soprano.
Hope this review will help.
BB
