Author: Dutchy
Date: 2011-01-18 14:38
You don't choose an oboe for how it looks, but for how it sounds. If you're happy with the sound of your Loree, don't worry about the chips and cracks and such.
Also, the IDRS has an article somewhere in their archives that concerns a blind test someone did back in the late 1970s IIRC, in which they played both plastic and wood oboes behind a screen for a panel of trained listeners, and the listeners could not tell which ones were plastic and which were wood. Wooden instruments feel different to play, but as far as the sound goes, they're the same as plastic (assuming you're talking about good quality instruments like Fox, and not Chinese mass-production oboes, of course).
I play a Fox 333 and am pleased with it; it's an excellent quality oboe with a good sound, even if it's just an intermediate model. When I was looking into buying an oboe, I did considerable research, and I found that Fox oboes are bored out individually, the same way you'd bore out a wooden oboe; they aren't cast in a mold, like cheap resin toys. This would account for their better sound. It's possible that when you were looking at them years ago, they may have been using cast resin oboes, but now they've changed, I don't know.
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