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Choosing a "good" clarinet

Author: Dan
Date: 2001-11-11 18:20

I have been trying in vain to find an "acceptable" clarinet...one with good intonation, responsive, even scale, etc. I've been reading a lot of postings and decided to go to WW & BW in NYC. The people were very friendly but "quite busy". In needing to make changes in instruments or mpc's, I had to wait until they took care of other customers up front. My personally set allotted time was up and I left frustrated.
I now have 3 demo units in my home..An E11, a Normandy 4 and a Vito VSP 7820. I thought this might be a slightly better way since I would have 2 weeks to thoroughly check out the instruments. The E11 leaks air and the throat tones are 20 points high. The Vito open "G" was right on but all the other notes on the lower tone section were averaging 20 points low...especially the throat tones. The Normandy 4 had a pretty good scale, even the throat tones were almost dead on. But the voicing sounded kind of dull or stuffy. Upon disassembling the instrument, I carefully inspected the 2 body sections and the barrel. The body sections were pretty smooth and glossy but the barrell!!! It looked so bad...like someone had almost taken a file and ruffed it up.
Anyway, I'm looking for comments as to how to obtain an acceptable instrument without spending all day at a music store or sending clarinets back and forth for months until a good one is located.
Since I'm a hobbyist and play for my own personal pleasure, there HAS TO BE a better way to go about doing this!! My thoughts now are to buy a used instrument from a reputable repairperson who can attest to scale, evenness of sound projections, and responsiveness. Another idea I have is to buy a hopefully quality instrument body off of ebay, and then have it completely rebuilt by someone who really know what they are doing and then have it tuned correctly.
My patience has run out. I don't want to spend all day testing instruments while looking at a scale meter and I certainly don't intend to order any more to test out at home. A person should not have to buy a new instrument and then take it to a repairperson and have it "corrected". I am totally disgusted with what seems to be a majority of manufacturers who can't seem to get their act together and turn out consistently good instruments (IMO).
I appologize for the long posting. I have been carefully and patiently doing "my homework" in trying to do what shoud be a rather simple operation.
Your helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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Author

Date

Choosing a "good" clarinet

Dan

2001-11-11 18:20

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Bob Arney

2001-11-11 19:08

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Fred

2001-11-11 19:08

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-11 20:41

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Dan

2001-11-11 21:16

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Bill

2001-11-11 21:27

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Dan

2001-11-11 21:54

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Bob Arney

2001-11-11 21:59

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

GBK

2001-11-11 22:01

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Dan

2001-11-11 23:18

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

ron b

2001-11-11 23:20

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Fred

2001-11-12 01:17

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-12 01:18

RE: Ridenour TR147 new

Hiroshi

2001-11-12 01:56

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Bob Arney

2001-11-12 02:52

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Jack Kissinger

2001-11-12 04:53

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Joris

2001-11-12 09:19

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Larry Liberson

2001-11-12 15:18

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Wes

2001-11-12 18:44

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-12 20:38

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-12 20:44

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-12 20:46

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Dan

2001-11-12 23:27

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Mark Charette

2001-11-13 00:15

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Larry Liberson

2001-11-13 01:09

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Mark Charette

2001-11-13 01:33

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

sarah

2001-11-13 01:39

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Katfish

2001-11-13 02:16

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Mark Charette

2001-11-13 02:32

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Jack Kissinger

2001-11-13 03:32

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Bottom Line

2001-11-13 16:51

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Bob Arney

2001-11-14 00:44

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-14 01:42

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Bob Arney

2001-11-14 03:20

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Gordon (NZ)

2001-11-14 09:32

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

-

2001-11-14 10:57

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Ed

2001-11-14 16:38

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-14 18:46

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-14 18:51

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Dan

2001-11-15 01:54

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Ed

2001-11-16 03:12

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-16 05:00

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Emms

2001-11-16 10:01

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Mark Charette,

2001-11-16 12:56

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Emms

2001-11-16 13:49

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-16 18:38

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Emms

2001-11-16 20:15

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-16 21:16

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Julia

2001-11-16 21:31

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Gordon (NZ)

2001-11-17 00:00

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-19 13:36

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Bob Arney

2001-11-19 14:35

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Emms

2001-11-19 20:57

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-19 23:20

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Gordon (NZ)

2001-11-20 09:16

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Emms

2001-11-20 10:47

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Peter

2001-11-20 14:28

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Bob Arney

2001-11-20 23:00

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Gordon (NZ)

2001-11-21 13:29

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Emms

2001-11-21 23:57

RE: Choosing a "good" clarinet new

Gordon (NZ)

2001-11-22 11:25

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