I like Symmetricut, help!

[DanY]

Last month I went to my local music shop and, on a whim, bought a box of Symmetricut 3.5 tenor sax reeds.
I normally use Vandoren Java, but I hadn't seen these before. I gave them a go on my Selmer Soloist G, and they work really well for me. They seem to add an element of rawness or randomness, that I like. And it's not just one reed out of the pack, I'm on my third one.
Imagine my surprise when I find that these reeds are the worst you can buy! They are advertised as being 'durable' and 'economical'.

The strange thing is though, they have such a bad name that no-one stocks them. Do you think I could buy normal Rico reeds? Will they be awful enough for me?

[sax_appeal]

Perhaps they are so bad they are good. But seriously, there might be one worker for this company who is dedicated to making a decent reed or perhaps that by some strange mishap they accidentally grew some decent cane. No two reeds are the same, so there are going to be some Symmetricuts which are good and there are going to be some Alexanders which are absolute, well you know.

[JimD]

I bought 3 Symmetricuts on ebay just for the sake of it. They all play well even though they are all cut differently and some are thin and some are thick. They lack a bit of subtlety but they sound good and powerful and all 3 play. I've played a lot worse reeds and paid plenty more for them. In fact I have a well known brand reed that is the worst cut I've ever seen and won't play a note, even a squeak. That reed cost as much as 3 Symmetricuts. If I could find them I'd buy another box.

[sax_appeal]

I would like to apologise for ym above post. At the time of posting I did not realise that my remark about Alexander's reeds could be offensive. I merely intended to point out that while Symmetricut can make some good reeds, on the other end of the scale Alexander's can occassionally produce a bad reed. I only chose Alexander's as an example because, as well as being my reed of choice, they are well liked by many saxophoninsts and have a good reputation as a maker of reeds.