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Recommendations for a cheap Starter Alto Sax

8K views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  rogerb40uk 
#1 · (Edited)
I know I am in the basement here, but I will not pay out the readies for a student Yamaha (YAS23?). Is the cheap 'unamed' chinese alto sax reviewed by stephen howard, the gear4music sax, also is it a copy of the Yanagisawa 992 sax(Yes it is ref. S. Howard post)? Scali bought the Thoman starphone sax, is this likely to be a re-badge of the same sax, or does the keying problem suggest an inferior model from a different factory? There are some Hanson (Arbiter sell offs) Gulf saxes (168L) to found in this price range £150-£250, a second hand Boosey Hawkes, but the cost of possibly re-padding it puts me off this and other second hand instrumnets. The Semer Prelude AS700 is in the range, but is it better than the others? I spotted a Buffet alto in the price bracket, my daughter had a Buffet clarinet which was a nice sweet instrument. Some other chinese brands seem to be Mc Avoy, Young, and Virtuoso, anybody had experiences with these?
I went round a few local shops they only had an out of stock earlham (didn't get the model name, the professional II seems to be a chinese sourced model) whatever their model wasit cost £500. The other shop had a new Artemis Mark 2 for £399, supposedly they had reduced its price from £599.
Please no nail it to the wall comments, unless you've had one in your hands.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers
 
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#2 ·
Check this site in "Marketplace, Horns and Equipment Wanted & For Sale, Saxophones, Horns For Sale."

Might find a nice horn from a player for a good price. Every once in a while somebody practically gives a horn away.
 
#3 ·
I can say from first-hand experience that the Hanson Gulf Alto offers fantastic VFM, especially with all the after-sales back-up from Hanson. And yes, I have had one in my hands :)
Only disadvantage is that you'd probably get a better trade-in price for a better-known 'name' (unless you upgrade to another Hanson!)
Hopefully you aren't buying with the intention of trading-up for quite a while... you wouldn't need to, I'm sure, with a Gulf.
Give 'em a ring and havva chat about it.
 
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