Klarinet Archive - Posting 000840.txt from 1999/12

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Some disturbing news?
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 20:56:37 -0500

At 09:51 AM 12/24/1999 -0500, Kenneth Wolman wrote:
>The guy at Prestini was quite careful to indicate that the horns are NOT
>Winstons or Jean Baptistes with a different name. A Jean Baptiste
>soprano sells for under $400. The Prestini sax does not feel flimsy,
>the rods, keywork, and assembly feel quite sound. No misaligned pads or
>any of that stuff. And like I said, it plays very okay.
>
I did not mean to suggest that Prestini's are of poor quality jsut because
they are of Taiwanese origin. In fact, once I made a few adjustmwnts (I
ALWAYS seem to need to make a few adjustments, regardless of manufacturer),
I have no quality complaints about my E.M. Winston soprano, especially for
the price I paid! If the Prestinis are better, then they must be pretty good.

>> Hasn't happened yet, and I doubt that they would take the risk. They are
>> fully aware of what happened to Conn!
>
>I don't know what happened to Conn, in fact, but I assume they are out
>of business, and that it had something to do with taking their act out
>of the country but not being up front about it.
>
When Conn moved production to Mexico, quality fell so drastically that they
all but destroyed the reputation of the company. Typical short-sighted
business decision. Conn is still in business as a division of United
Musical Intruments, but all production has returned to the US. Whereas
they used to be one of the top makes of professional saxophones, they
currently do not even MAKE a pro sax, although their newly designed
intermediates show a lot of promise.

>What's curious to me is that Selmer USA does not even make a soprano
>horn: those are all Selmer Paris and oh boy, are they expensive....
>
It does seem strange, now that you mention it, but I guess there never WAS
a Bundy soprano. I doubt that they could compete effectively against the
Prestinis and L.A.'s anyway, given the relatively small numbers involved.
Heck, they are still dragging their feet on the redesign of the Selmer
1244/Bundy II tenor due to the relatively small volume.

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://homepages.go.com/~zoot14/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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