 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Roxann
Date: 2014-04-10 21:30
Has anybody had experience ordering used clarinets from London? If the company is well-respected and has been around a long time, is it safe to purchase from them? In particular, I'm looking at a used clarinet from Clarinets Direct in the UK. Would I have anything to worry about with the wooden clarinet being shipped to the US?
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2014-04-11 06:16
I bought a clarinet from Clarinets Direct about a year ago. They shipped it to Australia without problems, and it was exactly as described. Pretty good service. I'd deal with them again. I have no connection with them other than as a customer.
Tony F.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2014-04-11 22:09
I have dealt with this company several times over past 3-4 years and had very good service and zero problems. Being based in UK myself the shipment is more straight forward but equally I have purchased from USA and Canada and several european countries without any shipment problems.
If your question is also about will the wood travel, again I have never had problems in reverse direction.
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Author: donald
Date: 2014-04-12 00:39
One thing to bear in mind when buying USED clarinets from a store in London, there's a very good chance that the instrument will already have been play tested by a good number of very fine players (London being a huge city full of fine musicians). If a particular clarinet lives in a particular store longer than a month or so without anyone buying it, there's a good chance that it will have some quality about it that discourages potential buyers...
I could elaborate, but a very fine pro colleague of mine needed/wanted a certain model of a certain brand and couldn't really wait around for the "right" instrument, so bought "long distance" (international) from a good shop in London (don't want to name the shop as they were not really at fault). Ended up with an instrument that sounded great but had intonation problems, not easily solved, that would have been identified easily in a play test. They bought a better clarinet some months later, but then found it difficult to sell the one with bad tuning...
Returning an instrument "long distance" can be expensive, plus while some flaws might be instantly identified, you might not immediately work out how annoying they are- or you convince yourself that they can be solved by a new barrel/register tube/repadding etc etc. It's amazing what you will put up with if you love the SOUND and feel of an instrument, but long term it can get too annoying...
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Author: donald
Date: 2014-04-12 06:25
did mean that to sound too discouraging... but there is a high chance that if it's a goodie someone will have noticed it already
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Author: sax panther
Date: 2014-04-12 13:20
One of my pupils bought her r13 from clarinets direct, and the guy who services my instruments also does the servicing for clarinets direct. You can buy with confidence.
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