Vandoren Hand Selects: worth the price?

[altonino]

Thinking about buying some Vandoren Hand Selects to reduce time wasted finding the bad reeds. Has anyone compared good reed counts in a box of Hand Selects versus the regular Blue Box? Twice the price should yield twice the number of good reeds, n'est pas?

On a related note, I wonder what do they do with the hand selected rejects? I hope these go into the mulcher and not back into the general population.

[Sigmund451]

My guess is unless they are horrible they go back to general pop.

Id be willing to wager they arent worth the money but thats not from experience. Even if they are inspected there remain significant variables that cannot be only be accounted for through playing. You might get a better percentage of playable reeds but at quite a premium. Id think it cheaper to make your own adjustments. Perhaps someone offers play tested reeds :dazed:

[colibri]

They are not worth the money. I speak from experience.

[awholley]

I agree. I couldn't see any difference either.