My youngest daughter is learning soprano sax, and I want to get her one – the local shops all seem to be 500-600eur & up, online they’re a lot cheaper… but (unlike books and bikes) I have no idea where to go, anyone got any recommendations?

Thomann.de

+1 for Thomann, very quick shipping (3-4days), and a returns policy they allows return within a month.

Cheers, will check them out.

Although I’m also a huge thomann fan there is another viewpoint. A friend of mine just bought a new trumpet for his son and althogu he looked at thomann his teacher persuaded him to go to a shop as in that price range there can be a lot of variety even between examples of the same instrument. When they went to a shop they tried three examples of the same trumpet and found one to be much better, even after only a couple of years playing. The music teacher also had a discount in that shop so the price ended up only 30 eur more than thomann but they were sure they had the instrument that they wanted.

the teachers advice if they wanted to buy online was to go for yamaha as they seemed to have the least variation between instruments. Might be different for sax of course.

leffeboy is right – and the variation between saxes ispotentially greater than trumpets because there are so many variables

if you can get a sax player to go with you then this would be a bonus, but a dodgy reed won’t help so get her to go through the reed box and take one that she can play easily on

[edit] get her to take the mouthpiece, this is also a big variable as it will take time to get used to a new sax and new mouthpiece at the same time, so same mouthpiece will allow her to pick the sax with more confidence

incidentally is there a specific reason for a soprano? you will get more bang for your buck if you get an alto (but I can imagine if she has small hands or struggles with the weight then it’s the right call)

let me do a bit of research…. Yamaha’s are never a bad buy (Mrs Ed has a yamaha baritone and it’s really nice, I have old Conn tenor but wouldn’t recommend vintage for learners btw)

Thanks for the replies! The reason for the soprano sax is basically because she’s seven and it’s what her teacher has recommended. Don’t think the teacher’s available for sax shopping unfortunately, and as I have no idea what to look out for I’ll go online – though I’ll definitely check out the Yamaha range first.

Not really sure about any other instruments but I have bought c. 20 guitars/bass over the years and they all play/feel/sound different, even same model out of the same factory whether that be cheap FE stock thru to high end USA custom builds, personally I wouldn’t buy on line without playing first YMMV….

HTH….good luck.

I once spent a happy hour trying different new Yamaha yas32 Altos, all of which felt different.

Soprano is an unusual starter sax. I can see the point in starting small, but you do need to be able to generate a fair amount of lip pressure, and altos and tenors are way more common in ensembles..

Assuming this is to suit a small person, the first question I think you should be asking is should she buy a straight soprano sax (more usual, but long and weight not really taken by a sling) or a curved soprano (less common, S shaped like a bigger sax, and a fair amount of weight carried by the sling)

You will certainly find less in the range of s/h bargains in Sopranos compared with altos or tenors.

HTH

I’ve no idea why the teacher’s chosen a soprano sax, and yes – it’s the curved model. Thanks again for the replies, although I get the feeling they’ve created more doubts than they’ve solved!

Thread resurrection, just in case anyone else starts searching for musical instruments threads…

We ended up going with Thomann, thanks to all who recommended them – excellent service, and apparently (according to the teacher, anyway) the sax is ideal.