Rick Adams said:
Sorry I should have clarified that I wasn't referring specifically to the Kessler horns here, about which I know nothing at all. I was speculating about Taiwanese horn manufacturing more generally, as I am potentially interested in learning more about it.
I would hope that some peoples suspicion that Asian horns are all made under one roof by an organized mass of workers stamping out look alike horns and stamping names on them at the end, is an accidental misconception that should by now, be lost.
Productivity and profits has caused shifting worker location and also artistic and financial expansion to Asia. Europe and America have dropped the ball, so to speak.
There is nothing pathetically inferior about business being developed were the money is of more value and the same structural and learning techniques that it took the west to develop, its quality and industry will soon be a characterisation of the East if not already. Asians are building most of the worlds saxophones. Get used to the brand differences and the quality differences, but the factory name recognition thing of western culture is not a thing of the east and in fact has been fading from the west too.
An Asian company may just make a number of parts , products and instruments under one roof, depending what merchant wants what stuff. Their pride of workmanship is not diminished when the buyer desires a certain product for a certain price, we are not talking Detroit here.
Asian companies can handle a change and add it to there expertize.
What a funny concept to even imagine, a instrument factory making horns of all sizes and shapes and at the end a labeling machine............(Hmmmmm I wonder?)
What merchant would actually want to be associated with that?!
