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Author: west-wind  
Date:   2010-12-02 20:06 
 I recently bought a Lucian Bassi Albert system clarinet, on receiving it i discovered that the barrel socket for the mouthpiece was very small, just under 22mm diameter; initially I thought I would have to track down some german style mouthpieces or have the tenons on some of mine reduced.  
 
However, in order to try out the instrument I discovered that the barrel from my ebonite hanson more or less fitted, there is a small gap between the barrel and body due to the shorter socket on this barrel, when fitted the length of the barrel is the same as the original.  
 
I tried a few mouthpieces and discovered that the intonation was very good with a couple of different mouthpieces giving equally acceptable results. It struck me that rather than trying to track down, or adjust mouthppieces, I could have the barrel socket opened up, there's plenty of wood thickness, given the excellent results with standard mouthpieces; or am I missing something? 
 
I was a bit suprised by the non-standard diameter given that this was made for Heyworths and obviously intended for the UK market. 
 
Paul 
 
  
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Author: Caroline Smale  
Date:   2010-12-03 18:24 
 Should be no problem having socket reamed out for a modern mouthpiece. 
I think most sockets these days are 22.5mm so you don't have to remove much wood.
  
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