Cheap Amazon Soprano Sax VS Professional Instrument | Unboxing + Review

#bettersax #saxophone #amazon
Jay Metcalf compares the soprano saxophone on Amazon versus a professional Yanagisawa soprano.

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[Hammertime]

These videos have made me a firm believer that the majority of the sound is the musician not the horn

[bwacuff]

The soprano saxophone...or as I call it, the "b-flat Armored Clarinet."

[gulfchef]

When I gave trumpet lessons some 48 years ago as a professional musician, a mother of a student apologized for having to buy her son such a cheap trumpet. I picked the horn, put my mouthpiece in the her son's horn and played some golden tone improvs of the tune Laura. She was astounded at how good the horn sounded. I then thanked her for at least buying him a horn to get him started enriching his life with musical performance.
She thanked me and started to cry.

[waynebruce]

0:45 turn on captions. You're welcome.

[egg-jzxu]

The sax: *plays well

This guy: huh. That's weird

[stitch]

Dude...if this company ever makes a bari sax of atleast somewhat equal quality for a proportionally reasonable price...review that too.

[jimdrake-writer]

I chose “B” immediately because, as a clarinetist, I could hear air escaping from the tone holes in several parts of the instrument’s range, and could also detect much more effort on your part trying to make the comparison as fair as the instrument’s lower quality allows. A very, very helpful video for those who may be choosing a beginning instrument for lessons.

[timothysatryan]

TOTALLY cracked up at the "That's odd... this saxophone only plays Kenny G!" lolol

[terria]

Thank-you for your videos! When I was younger, I was a proficient alto sax player. Now at 55 yrs old, I wanted to try a soprano, call it a winter hobby. After watching this and your video comparing altos, I bought an Ammoon LADE curved soprano sax from Amazon and got a Yamaha 4C mouthpiece for it. Similar to your experiences, so far, mostly good! It arrived in one piece and tightly in its case. All of the keys are tight, no loose screws, springs or rods, however, it would not play low B or B-flat due to a leak. I took it to a local experienced repair man who has a 1928 curved soprano Buescher in very good condition that we compared it to (he was pleasantly surprised at how the LADE played)! The LADE actually sounds pretty decent (he made the adjustment so that the LADE can play all notes now). I left it with him for some fine tuning. Similar to your experience, some of the keys have too thin of cork, so those keys open wider than a european tolerance (playable but inefficient). The lower B and B-flat keys have too thick of felt. The pads are seated deeply, so they may not last as long as a higher quality-controlled sax. But, for me to fiddle around with, its a keeper. Thanks again for your videos!

[nailfiles]

I’m convinced it’s the musician and price doesn’t matter.

[_Matt]

At this point you might as well play the tenor they have

[jacobduncan]

B is definitely much Richer sounding. Nice blind test the little differences really stand out.

[paulclare]

Honestly I can't hear $ 4000 difference in sound.this Is great beginner sax.

[SkylersRants]

Just got one for my daughter for Christmas. I've been trying to interest her in learning to play, but she's been intimidated by how big the alto is (she's 12 and petite). She saw me watching another video of a guy playing a curved soprano and said she wanted to try that. For $270 (which includes shipping) I had this LADE on my doorstep. You can't beat that price. I opened it to make sure it was put together right, and it feels really good. I didn't play it because that needs to wait for Christmas day, but no leaks and the keys feel pretty good.

I remember playing a lot of crappy student horns, mostly Bundy and Conn, back in the 70's and 80's that were much worse than this. I'm looking forward to hearing it being played. I might even buy a tenor!

[bikermousefrommarz]

Took a while but it became very evident, when moving into the higher register, that B, was the king. Much more resonant. Musically beautiful. Claranet sounding almost! Just lovely!

[MrJcollins]

Picked B after 10 seconds - sound was more "liguid" and smoother as well. That being said I think A is a great starter piece. As for the case slop - 1/4 to 3/4 inch (7 -18 mm) memory foam as required. Works great for guitar and piano cases too.

[flitsies]

Ok as a sax player myself I know that the mouth piece is a personal thing very personal.

So the mouth piece is not something you can really judge a sax by, the mouth piece that ships with a lot of saxophones tend to be like the strings shipped with guitars, OK but you would swap them out as soon as you can.

As for the actual sax I love cheap saxophones, my very first ever sax was a second hand really cheap sax, and it played like crap, but I spent time learning how to service that thing, how to make it play good, I learnt that some of the squeaks and farts coming from the machine was not me but the actual sax, which was a valuable lesson to learn.

The saxophone is supposed to be a cheap instrument, when it was originally made the people it was made for didn't like the sound of it so it was pretty much dumped on the side hardly ever used in classical music, but that hard raw sound it can produce and the fact that it was a cheap instrument to buy is what made it such a popular instrument with the musicians that made it famous, Jazz musicians were poor people many still are.

This saxophone is a wonderful instrument, I don't know the brand but it is an instrument that is staying with the tradition of making musical instruments affordable for everyone.

All it would take is a little time and effort to make it a really good instrument, a little bit of work, if you are mechanically minded you wouldn't need to send it off to an instrument tech to fix, so it wouldn't cost you 100s of dollars to fix, like wise the case.

The case is a nice case all it needs is a little bit of fixing, the instrument rattles in the case so spend a couple of dollars on some packing make a couple of case cushions using any kind of cheap foam packing material, and a bit of cloth to cover it.

All the extras are a bonus, if the hooks that hold the case as a back pack slip off just change the hooks for something better, keep the same strap use a sewing machine and hey presto all the things you hated about this sax fixed for less than 50 dollars.

[mikew]

The Amazon sax’s sound seemed a little thinner, but man, for the $, you’d think the difference would be greater.

[danieldavidovsky]

old thread, i know. I'm a soprano player. i play a Yani Elimona (s880). My repair tech offered me to try one of his own branded Chinese instrument. Right there in the studio, with my regular mp, the sound of the Yani was much more louder, centered and richer, than the Chinese sax. It sounded "clean" but small - or paraphrasing: "this sax plays Kenny G sort of stuff" - mind you, im a free-jazz player, and I like'em phat. Thanks Jay. I love your channel.

[JonathonPawelko]

I am not a sax player or even a good musician I am afraid to say, but I appreciate your music and reviews they are quite interesting. Thanks for the education.