Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-01-23 15:08
Avoid:
Anything made in China. Jupiter is making usable instruments, but even that brand was terrible at the beginning.
"Indian Army" clarinets, which used to be all over the auction sites. Avoid in particular anything with red corks or thread on the tenons.
Moennig -- dreadful cheap German instruments from the 50s.
Pan American -- the lowest. The "propellor wood" instruments, with a blond, striped surface, are particularly bad.
The bottom keys of clarinets have a vertical rod, a pad cup and a horizontal strut that connects the two. The strut should extend only to the middle of the pad cup. I've found that a strut that goes all the way across the cup is a sure sign that a clarinet's keys are made of pot-metal, which breaks easily and can't be repaired. (It's the opposite, though, for oboes.)
Ken Shaw
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