 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Bb
Date: 2002-01-02 04:46
I heard That it's not because of the material, then Why is it??
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Author: Dee
Date: 2002-01-02 11:24
Mark is correct. It is that the typical wooden clarinet is a higher quality instrument. However, some of the old wooden student clarinets such as the Pan American are real dogs. The modern plastic student horns by the better makers are far better instruments.
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2002-01-02 13:22
I've restored a few old hard rubber clarinets and bass clarinets using the same care, materials and techniques as for the corresponding wood versions of the same brand and design, and they sound (to my ears, anyway) at least as good, if not better, than the wood versions. In fact, back in the 50s, companies such as Kohlert and Malerne sold clarinets and bass clarinets simultaneously in both hard rubber and wood versions, for nearly the same prices, to give buyers an option of having a much more crack-resistant hard rubber clarinet instead of the admittedly prettier wood version. I don't know what the relative sales figures were, but it would be interesting to find out. In my own 'collection' of clarinets, my 'main players' of the following sizes happen to be hard rubber: Eb sopranino, A soprano, bass, and one of my two Bb sopranos; and my EEb contra-alto is plastic. All sound fine to me, and I'd bet anyone that in a proper double-blind listening test, nobody would be able to distinguish these from good-quality wood instruments. As Mark and Dee pointed out, the real reason wood clarinets generally sound better than plastic ones is that, because wood clarinets sell better and can command higher prices, manufacturers put their best labor and materials into the wood ones, and generally skimp on the plastic ones. As has been pointed out many times before on this BB, in the double-reed world top-quality professional oboes and bassoons have been made (partly or entirely) out of plastic for years.
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2002-01-03 04:28
Not all of them do. The ones that do sound better are generally better and more carefully made.
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Author: Pat Shepard
Date: 2002-01-06 03:52
Are there any really high end plastic/hard rubber clarinets being made right now?
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