Klarinet Archive - Posting 000828.txt from 2003/08

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Rossi and Patricola vs Buffet
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 19:01:58 -0400

At 09:17 AM 8/27/2003 -0400, David Blumberg wrote:
>Yup - Buffet is still the standard for Professional Clarinetists and
>probably always will be.
>Sure there are others but put em all together and they still don't equal
>Buffet's Industry Marketplace. The best that the competitors can do is to
>demonize the Buffet to try to get their own model sold. (IMNSHO ;)

The Buffet R-13 is indeed the "standard" for professional clarinets (in the
US, anyway). Like the Bach Stradivarius trumpet and the Selmer Paris
saxophones are the professional "standards" in their respective
categories. This is not to say that they are the BEST, merely that they
set the price/quality standard among mass-marketed brands. Better ones CAN
be obtained, but are often not widely available or are too expensive to
penetrate more than the fringe of the market. Or they simply cannot
overcome the marketing dominance of the "standard" brand. By whatever
combination of shrewd marketing, luck, and, (most certainly) product
quality, certain makes tend to rise (usually over GLACIAL periods of time)
to become "standards" like these. It might be instructive to note that,
although the Sony Beta, and possibly (as has been argued recently) the
Macintosh computer, may have set TECHNICAL standards, they did not (will
not) achieve the industry standard positions of VHS and Windows due to
marketing failures. Or, to put it another way, VHS and Windows, among
other products, dominate their markets IN SPITE OF their apparent
inferiority. Being #1 is no guarantee of being the best.

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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