Techs Only-Favorite Horn? Why?

Mark VI is nicely designed (in a mechanical engineering sense) and well made. However many of them are pretty tired now, so can involve major work to restore to original function.

For modern instruments, Yanagisawa. There is still a real mechanical engineer in their design team, and manufacture is consistent, precise, and good. They are therefore a breeze to work on.

Selmer (Paris) may be good in acoustic design, but they keep doing silly or slovenly things in the engineering and manufacturing department.

Yamaha are close to Yanagisawa in their pro range.

Yanagisawa don't make student instruments. If they did, then they may have to sacrifice some standards (like levelness of tone holes and precision in hinges) as Yamaha has done in their student range.

It is these sacrifices that to me, tarnish Yamaha's name. However IMO, all things considered, Yamaha makes their student sax better than other brands of student sax.

However they had better watch out. I expect some Chinese ones to be better before long. When both quality control and cheap labour are available, there is no need for the mechanical scruffiness that remains evident in student Yamahas.

It depends from what point of view. Woking on the instrument, I really like Yamaha professional saxophones and also Yanagisawa. Although I agree with Gordon about Yamaha students saxophones I still like them a lot in spite of their problems. Mark VI is also good. New Selmers and Borganis are pretty much ok and I'd say they are about the same in that respect. Better models from Jupiter are very good too.

But for factory setup it is different. Yamahas, Yanagisawas and new Selmers are about the same, all have problems with setup and adjustment with pro Yamahas being slightly better than others, and Yanagisawas pretty good too. Surprisingly Selmers are not much behind the Japanese companies here, but they do have problems that might make those necessary adjustments harder and/or longer to do.

For just overall feel and playing I really like some Mark VIs and Yamahas. A few Conns and one Martin I also remember that I liked, and also some better models from Jupiter. Newer Selmers are ok but don't do much for me, and also Yanagisawas, in spite of how great they are objectively.

I'm not a masochist in that sense like abadcliche and jbtsax, although I don't have any problem working on those saxophones too just the same as any saxophone. I think they (and others) might like to work on those because of the emotional effect those "vintage" models have on some saxophoninsts. Maybe because I'm a clarinetist with saxophone as a double, they have none of that effect on me.