Klarinet Archive - Posting 000112.txt from 2002/03

From: "Tim Roberts" <timr@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Interested in buying a new clarinet.
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 17:20:17 -0500

On Thu, 7 Mar 2002 17:48:11 -0000, Helen Coney wrote:
>
>Daniel,
>I have had my clarinet for about Three years and it has never let me down.
>It is a Buffet R13 and where as other makes that contemporaries of mine have
>had mine a has lasted the best. Before I bought my current clarinet I tried
>a range of makes and the Buffet came out tops.

Do you remember which other clarinets you tried?

>It has a lovely tone and
>sings when ever played whether by me or a friend and it does it's duty. With
>some clarinets they can be tempromental from time to time... a friend of
>mines Bently would be good one day and then rubbish the next... my clarinet
>has never let me down. So, have i proved my point?

No, you have not proven that "Buffet is the best", and indeed it would be
impossible to do so. What you have shown here is that "the Buffet R-13 was
the best choice for me", and "my R-13 has worked well for three years". Both
of those are perfectly valid and useful statements, although three years is
still very young for a clarinet.

Every person is different, and every person will interface differently to a
particular clarinet. What works great for you might be garbage in someone
else's hands. Further, "Buffet" by itself is way too broad: Buffet makes a
wide range of clarinets, from cheap student models up to the very high end
professional range.

In this mailing list, we have beginners asking questions about equipment.
Often, they are unable to read between the lines when someone says "XXX is
the best, YYY is garbage" to decide whether it is personal opinion or common
knowledge. Because of that, many of us have become hypersensitive to blanket
statements. I think what Dan was really trying to do was to have you express
your opinions a bit more specifically and concretely. I think you did that
rather well.

--
- Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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