Author: Imperial Zeppelin
Date: 2006-08-17 18:55
Interesting observations that I can verify...
D was looking for a "second" Bb since she's off to conservatory this coming year. She has a 4 year old R-13 and we wanted to make sure that she had a spare just in case. It seems that something always goes wrong right before a major event.
Anyway, WWBW had an open box R-13 at an excellent price so we made the trip. It was quite obvious from the start why that person returned that particular R-13; it was just plain horrible! We then proceeded to try a dozen unopened R-13s and quickly realized that D's R-13 was a damn good one compared to this new lot, which were very diappointing.
Then we tried the Yamaha CSG-H and were shocked how well in-tune it was, better than her "good" R-13. D liked the key work too, but to us the intonation was not quite as good as her R-13. Since this was to be a back-up horn, we were still seriously considering it, especially since it was clearly better than any of the R-13s we had sampled that day.
Unfortunately, she talked me into letting her try a few Prestiges (they just happened to have some on hand) and one of them was truly outstanding, in better tune that either the Yamaha or the R-13 and it had wonderful intonation. I made her randomly play alll three with my back to her and I picked the Prestige first and picked the R-13 over the Yamaha by a hair.
Had I stuck to my projected budget, she would have walked out of their with an excellent Yamaha horn for only a few hundred $ more than the open box R-13. Instead, I caved into the "Daddy it followed me home, can we keep it" ploy.
All that being said, Yamaha has become a serious contender and is probably the best value in professional clarinets at this time, especially in light of the new Buffet pricing. For any of you buying a new horn, I certainly carefully consider them as an option.
Post Edited (2006-08-17 18:58)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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