Trends and Fads in sax popularity

As long as the big 4 keep raising prices for good reasons or not, folks will be open to new makes that are affordable. That truth isn't a fad. It's the so called efficient marketplace at work. When the quality is high enough it should create demand equal to it's price. Hence the big 4 can and do charge premium pricing for their instruments. When a new manufacturer comes in with lower pricing, they are likely doing so at lower profit margins. With exception of labor costs, administration, marketing, raw materials, etc. are very much the same no matter who's name is on the sax. They face a hard choice if success means they will have incur rising fixed production cost due to them increasing manufacturing capacity. Do they continue to sell them at a low margin or do they increase prices thereby risking competitiveness?

Bottom line for us players is that we should be inclined to do what we can to support manufacturers who are offering good quality and value. Else, we will all pay more for less quality and/or choices.

Off my soap box now...

Surely if selmer / kielworth / yamaha etc started top charge less for their top line horns, we would all start to ask "what was wrong with that instrument/ brand" wouldnt we? Highest cost = highest quality in peoples minds

...how else does Lexus get away with charging so much for a Toyota

Selmer manufacturing in China makes no sense and is all the wrong way round anyway, it makes (slightly) more sense if you must save money to assemble chinese made components with care and attention in Paris, but I honestly cant see it happening on the top line horns, it would be a huge marketing own goal. People buy top line selmers and yanis and yamahas preciesely because they are not made in China.

At this point the chinese could make the best horn in the world, but they would have an impossible job to sell it to all those people who have invested in a big 4 horn already and would die before admitting the chinese can make a good instrument for a fraction of the cost.

There will always be a market for the primo instrument brands for the same reason there will always be a market for Rolls Royces and Ferraris...the question is how much of a trade off will there be between prices, quality and manufacturing volume.

Birdseed, Broccoli, or Brass

I've been told by a dealer that Selmer has been having labor troubles - maybe strikes and such that has caused them to bring in replacement workers and they are actually passing on the training costs to the distribution/sales network. Now maybe that's a convoluted excuse for raising prices for some other reason.

Also rumored that some Selmer mouthpiece manufacturing may be shipped off to China. The availability and distribution of mouthpieces is/was to be affected for a period of something like six months - supposedly to ship the tooling overseas.

This could also be management by rumor or implicit threat - if you are having labor troubles, all kinds of stories start about how this or that might get outsourced.

I thought I remember hearing that are general/widespread issues with labor in France - maybe other parts of Europe having issues too?

I think the biggest reason to be wary of Chinese mfg operations is a lack of trust of what they might be putting in your mouth (or under your fingers). Their regulation/FDA environment is NOT to any level that we in Western civilizations benefit from. And despite whatever dog and pony shows may be put on for Western industries courting mfg business opportunities in China, I'll never trust what they are putting into our mouths long term - be it birdseed, broccoli, or brass.

Not to mention how they've handled recent FDA issues via "management by execution". Yeah - that's the way to get people to speak up when there's wrongdoing... The well-being of the West is not in their 100 year plan. After Western manufacturing is completely decimated, we'll be selling and shipping them our food like it's Ireland in 1856. Afterall - we won't have any cash left when they decide to turn in their Treasury bonds. Though I shouldn't be so doom or gloom - we can always be annexed as part of their sovereign state to avoid any struggle in the matter.

Sorry - had to wear my raving lunatic heart on my sleeve for a minute there... Hey... where did my tinfoil hat go?....

So anyhow, while I think that more instruments coming in from China might be a TREND, I think that ever becoming a fad is a stretch - unless engraving becomes old hat and everyone has to have their horn painted with a pretty picture.