My main horn was a YTS-875 Custom from the early 90's. I played that horn for about 15 years and I still have it. It took me about 2-3 hours playing the Barone to decide it was the better horn for me at this point. I still like the key work and the easy low-end response of the Yammy but the Barone has a bigger sound across the board. My Classic is gold plated and thus far the finish has held up really well as has the horn in general. The other tenor that I'm presently playing a lot is a bare-brass Tenor Madness Custom. It's like a cross between the YTS-875 and Barone. It's key work and response is more like the Yamaha and it's sound closer to the Barone though not as big and a bit more focused. I still play probably 8 out of 10 gigs on the Classic.
Yes, but I haven't spent much time playing the Barone Vintage models. I am lucky that Sax Alley is one of the few shops that carry Phil's horns so I have played some of the present instruments over the course of time but I have nowhere near the time on them that I have on my horn. In addition, my horn is really pre Classic/Vintage. Very early on Phil just had one model which more closely resembles the Classic so when folks ask what model I have I say "a Classic" but strictly speaking that's not true so my horn is not exactly like the Classic that Phil sells today.
