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Anybody buy a Mauriat tenor recently?

14K views 45 replies 23 participants last post by  Silvio Martin 
#1 ·
I have an older one and am curious to know how the horns they're turning out these days play....solid right out of the box? needing more than minimal setup?

thanks in advance for any/all insights...
TM
 
#2 ·
I have a 66RUL tenor, around 8 years old, I'm not sure if you' d call that recent. Anyway, I love it. Even sold my mkvi because the main thing is how you play it! When I have the money, I might buy a bronze Yani, but right now, this is good enough for me. That said, the case is very poor. The ring for attaching the shoulder strap broke on me, and the case hit the ground parallel to the ground, very hard. The main body was bent by the impact, which was vey well sorted out by sax.co.uk. I now use a Hiscox case.

Enviado desde mi GT-P5210 mediante Tapatalk
 
#3 ·
I recently (a year ago) bought a P. Mauriat 66rx influence tenor, and I love it. There is so much you can do with this horn, whether it be smooth jazz, rock, or classical. The dark lacquer on it looks a little funky (in a good way), and it just has a really dark, resonant sound. I would recommend it.
 
#4 ·
mpab, its interesting you say that about the case strap breaking. My son's did the very same thing (he has an antique lacquered 66R). Had to have the keys adjusted again. This happened when he went to a music camp several years ago. Thank heavens I made him bring a backup (old Buescher Aristocrat).
 
#5 ·
First thing I did when I got mine was get a hard case. Other than that, besides needing a key riser on the palm D, everything's been fine. Mine's not new either, must be 7 or 8 years since I got it.
 
#6 ·
I bought one three years ago too! It's a really great horn that I play exclusively now. I did make a modification to the neck to make the angle at the end the same as my mk6. Now I don't have thumb aches anymore and I get the feeling I play it a bit more singing-ly......some people say it can be too dark, well my suggestion is get it checked for leaks or get a monitor. Mine still has a crunchy sparkle too! I had the exact problems with not hearing myself with the selmer! If you want a thick complex sounding horn this should be your first stop!
 
#7 ·
Just purchased my 2nd 67RGL alto from WW&BW last month and my 2nd 66RGL tenor last year from a different outlet. No issues at all right out of the shipping box.

I spoke with the WW&BW rep to see if they checked for any leaks prior to shipping. He said no because M has a good record of being in excellent shape on arrival at their warehouse.
 
#8 ·
I just bout a P Mauriat Le Bravo tenor yesterday. Amazing sound for the price, even when played next to much higher priced Selmers or Yamahas. Was told it is the same body as their pro models. It is considered an intermediate model. Beautiful case with built in compartment. Also came with a Forestone Black Bamboo reed, which I have yet to try.

Cheers
 
#9 ·
I have an older one and am curious to know how the horns they're turning out these days play....solid right out of the box? needing more than minimal setup?

thanks in advance for any/all insights...
TM
Well. I just saw this post and have some recent experience I'll share. I bought a 2013 66rul in May 2013 through Saxquest. They had been using it as a demo but insisted on doing their ($200, I think) free set up before sending it. After a year of moderate playing it still plays like a horn with an excellent set up. I recently found a demo 76 2nd edition 'store demo' and bought it. The store owner said it was in great playing condition. It wasn't nearly as well set up or easy to play as the one from Saxquest. I've actually considered sending it to Saxquest! They sell these and their guys like and own Mauriats (I believe) and apparently know what the hell they're doing.
 
#10 ·
I have an older one and am curious to know how the horns they're turning out these days play....solid right out of the box? needing more than minimal setup?

This response may come too late for your purposes, moontom, but...... Just bought a 66RUL new about a week ago, and am in 7th heaven. S/N 5107xx. If it sat on the shelf, it may be a year or two old, I dunno. After having played a good bit of classical and jazz from age 7 through college, I had not owned a horn for 15+ years. The last horn I had for any length of time was a late-60s Mark VI soprano on loan for 3 years during college. Happened past a chain music store in Maryland and, on a lark, asked to borrow a mpc and play the oddly dark-looking horn I saw hanging on the wall. Had not even heard of P. Mauriat prior to that evening (yes, that's how out of it I had been!) -- I chose it purely out of curiosity. I was completely blown away by all aspects of the horn -- tone, ease of playing through all ranges, responsiveness, and, most of all, incredible controllability. It did anything and everything I wanted without me having to try hard -- I could whisper, I could project, anything. I simply thought of an idea, and it would pop out of the horn.

I researched the Mauriats online and found many good reviews and happy owners, but I had my doubts about buying a horn that had not been set up by a pro sax shop.
Went back and A-B'd it with other horns, including a 66RDK, a Yamaha 82Z, and a Kessler Sonus, which is marketed as being better than a Mauriat for less money. None of the others had anywhere near the total package that the 66RUL had. Intonation was a tad more perfect on the Sonus than the 66RUL, but the 66RUL's ergos, robust build quality, and much better consistency of tone up and down the horn made it my clear choice. Had to go with the horn that was going to continue to give me grinlock all the time.

I've seen a few posts about build quality problems with Mauriats as recently as late 2013 on SOTW. Perhaps I was particularly lucky and stumbled upon one of the better examples of a 66RUL, as it was not set up and yet played great out of the box. But I haven't found a single flaw or problem anywhere on the horn. It appears to have been designed well, manufactured with care, and, with the possible exception of what seem to be plastic-tipped adjusters on a couple of keys and levers, built tough and built to last. (Perhaps the plastic has some function/value, I don't know -- I'm not a technician.) And I really like the look and feel of the unlacquered brass.

Bottom line -- I found no drawbacks, and no flaws. We'll see how it holds up to use over time, but it seems like Mauriat has only gotten better at what they do. And I can't seem to put the horn down! What else can one ask for?! Highly recommended.
 
#11 ·
One of my students parents bought him a student model mauriat. I took it to my horn tech and he found a big glob of extra metal on the a tone hole that had the chance of making the pad seat right become an issue. That was kind of a red Flagg for me. I think the pro models are good but the lower end ones might be suspect.
 
#12 ·
I am thinking of plunging into the world of Taiwanese saxes, particularly with one of the Mauriats. Possibly the black pearl or the 66; I don't really know what the main differences are with any of them. Can someone please offer some clarification and recent experience with these? Thanks in advance...
 
#15 ·
frankly speaking, I expect from P.Mauriat or any other pro-model saxophone made in Taiwan that they are thoroughly inspected and playtested before shipping and ideally before reaching the final client ( from the retailer, if they don’t ship directly to the client).

An “ intermediate model” ( whatever this means) is cheaper also because instead of an individual mandatory QC passing a check up before shipping,they might receive a batch check up rather than an individual one ( so on the 10 horns made by every single employee one will be thoroughly checked and this spot check inspection would validate the 9 others which the company trusts would have been built by the same standards that the one that was checked).

How else does one expect a cheap(er) horn made largely in the same way as a more expensive one to be costing half of the money?

This is why, next to the huge cost differential in the cost of running a company with one or two employees who do everything from their home or one with several people taking part to trade fairs, having sales representatives, sponsoring and advertising, a saxophone from company X costs so much and the other from company Y costs a lot less.

We have seen over the years examples of, American or European, vendors of Taiwanese-made saxophones having the maker in Taiwan sending the sax directly to the client ( and therefore performing NO extra QC!!!) who has bought it on line from the company which has its name stamped or engraved on the horn.


This is obviously a quite different business model than P.Mauriat or Cannonball ( and many other larger companies) follow.
 
#16 ·
NOT WHAT THIS THREAD IS ABOUT! I don't need a lesson in distribution, I can probably teach you about it. If you have nothing to add, please post prolifically elsewhere.
 
#18 ·
Thanks Empress, not only nobody owns the threads on any forum , but certainly they don't own the interpretation of what the thread is about or not, if they are NOT ( I can use capitals too) even the initiator of the thread.

This thread is about how do P.Mauriat saxophones play out of the box and my comment on how Quality Control is performed is made towards that point.

As a reminder, this is the first post.

I have an older one and am curious to know how the horns they're turning out these days play....solid right out of the box? needing more than minimal setup?

thanks in advance for any/all insights...
TM
 
#19 ·
Come on girls, to expect a horn to play perfectly right out of the box leaves a lot to be desired. Could it have been mishandled in shipping, dropped, etc, etc.. If you look at my post and NOT the thread, you will see that I ask no mention of how they "play" out of the box. Frankly, my interpretation of the original thread is that the poster primarily wants to know how the horns are these days. Why do you think all of the boutique saxophone shops around offer custom sax set ups? Oh, boy, I think that I just opened up another can of worms with that one! Please start a new thread if you want to latch onto that. Sorry for the hostility, just tired of threads being juxtaposed with speculation and nonsense by people not qualified to answer the question.

Ironically, I usually/would have started a new thread but then you get these prolific posters telling me that someone already started a thread like this months ago.

If you can't answer my question, stay out of it and let the big boys with the experience to chime in! :)

"I am thinking of plunging into the world of Taiwanese saxes, particularly with one of the Mauriats. Possibly the black pearl or the 66; I don't really know what the main differences are with any of them. Can someone please offer some clarification and recent experience with these? Thanks in advance..."
 
#20 ·
Again, you don’t own the thread or the forum. It is not for you to decide what people can or cannot contribute to a thread that isn’t even been started by you ( and even if it was you still would’t have that right with the exception of For Sale threads).

If you think that any of this is against the rules you don’t go about it this way, you take it to the Moderators ( click on the triangle under a post) and make your complaint know to them


Public aggressiveness won’t bring you anywhere on this forum, that has been a common trait to all folks who come barging in in a bullish way and that has been so for years and years. If that is what you want to do, you are in the wrong place.

Purposely creating this kind of controversy reflects only negatively on you. If you don’t like what another member writes, you can put him or her on your ignore list, so you won’t see their posts or simply carry on with your agenda.

This is a public place and not your private turf.
 
#21 ·
You got I. I understand and apologize. I am just frustrated with prolific posters in general chiming in on every topic. Now, what can you tell me about P. Mauriat tenors, please?
 
#22 ·
I have experience with several of their tenor models but in particular with the 66 and the 76, both very good models.

When, long ago the 66 came on to the scene I thought it was one of the best horns on the market at the time, a saxophone with more than a wink to the past . When the 76 ( the only model which they produce directly in their own factory) was introduced you clearly saw they were onto modernizing their approach into something more personal.

P.Mauriat sells many variations on details but frankly speaking I regard to most of those a simple marketing to differentiate their offer into different niches.

Many of their other series are variations on the theme ( rolled, straight toneholes larger or smaller key touches, different finishes) but there is one commonality and that it is they are all very “ ballsy”. In my experience even all their best series require some adjustment out of the box but I think this is not uncommon and will be taken care of at the shop where they are sold.

P.Mauriat are generally sold by upmarket shops and they will all do some follow-up with their sales with some adjustments down the line if you need it. This doesn’t mean to say that nothing ever can go wrong , there are a few threads about this and especially when P.Mauriat changed their distributor both in the USA and in North-Europe problems arose there.

Could you find a better horn for less? Maybe but it won’t be that easy. In the meantime this has become an industry standard and together with Cannonball ( they hate each other’s guts :) ) they are no longer the new kids on the block but established brands.
 
#26 ·
Whether they play flawlessly out of the box, well, I've never seen anything but a Yamaha do that, and even then not many. Shipping across the Pacific and then North America to get to the East Coast usually has a bad effect on saxes, but the store is supposed to deal with that.

I played a trio of Mauriat tenors a bit over two years ago that all had considerable mechanical issues out of the box. More than just leaks: there was also play in a number of the mechanisms and some of the pads were WAY off center. One of them also had marring to the brass under the lacquer, a spot about the size of my thumbprint on the back of the bell. They were solidly built otherwise, but what I saw was quite enough to scare me off regardless of how they played. They were pretty close in serials, so based on that and most other SotW members' experiences that may have been isolated.
I came back and played one of them after it was set up properly, and although the tech had said they required more work than what he normally got from the store, it was a nice player when he was done with it. Still not my cup of tea, but then neither is any Mark VI I've ever tried. I played a more recent Mauriat tenor that had no such problems, although I'm not sure whether the store had tweaked it. Also tried an alto at some point that was a nice horn.

I would be confident that a Mauriat would be a good horn IF it got a good setup. I'd never buy one sight-unseen though, not after that.

EDIT:
P.Mauriat are generally sold by upmarket shops and they will all do some follow-up with their sales with some adjustments down the line if you need it. This doesn't mean to say that nothing ever can go wrong , there are a few threads about this and especially when P.Mauriat changed their distributor both in the USA and in North-Europe problems arose there.
Hm. Do you know when that happened by any chance?
 
#23 · (Edited)
milandro;2383594 said:
In the meantime this has become an industry standard and together with Cannonball ( they hate each other's guts :) ) they are no longer the new kids on the block but established brands.
Established in misdirection and mediocrity and I despise both of them.

From your regular Selmer snob.

This has been another public service announcement to educate the uninformed.
 
#25 ·
Milandro, Phil1, and Alain Gen; thanks very much for your comments. I really appreciate it, and anyone else please feel free to comment if you have something solid to add! ;)
 
#27 ·
well, IBeOmega, I suppose I do know what happened with the first European Distributor but I don’t know what happened with the American one.

Without going into details, it is very complicated to be distributed by a company which distributes other similar products. The ideal distributor for each company distributes several musical instruments types but only one brand of saxophones ( Although P.Mauriat sells trumpets too). If your distributor also has a Taiwanese “ brand” of his own, things can get a bit complicated. I am sure the American distribution underwent a different process but I am not sure of why things changed so I won’t comment on that.

As for the problems with QC that you have spotted, there were, occasionally, in the past, some problems with some P.Mauriat and they were also talked about on SOTW. As far as I understand things are, certainly when it comes to their pro models, much improved. Friends at several shops, where I have seen and tried the models that I referred to, do tell me that they are happy about what they are being delivered and that they overall satisfaction is very good. Yamaha and Yanagisawa tend to be the type of horn which plays out of the box with no adjustment. But they are very different horns and appeal to a different clientele.

True they don’t buy the whole range of P.Mauriat models, for example they don’t buy the cheaper so called “ intermediate” models which, I suspect, is where the horns that you are complaining about belonging.
 
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