King sax review

I got the horn back from Scimonetti's in Lancaster, CA. I played it today at my regular gig at Steamers Cafe in Fullerton, CA.

Wow! The old King is terrific - clearly superior to anything else in my closet, and that includes some highly desired altos. This horn does not have resonators on the pads, yet its voice is stronger than any other alto I've ever played. I just love this old horn! DAVE
 
I hear you Dave. So many players don't know what they are missing with these early Kings, and believe all the disparaging internet rumors spread about them.

I think they were equal or better than most of the other maker's offerings in their day, and compare very favorably today as well.
 
saxismyaxe said:
Dave,

My experience with the early, King "Improved" models has been precisely as you have written. I find them to be very well built horns, with advanced keywork for the time, a fine, typically King tone, and more than adequate intonation.

I really believe them to be equal or ahead of most of their 1920's competitors, and all at a reasonable price on today's market.

The lack of interest among the uninitiated works in our favor.;)
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saxismyaxe said:
So many players don't know what they are missing with these early Kings, and believe all the disparaging internet rumors spread about them.
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My experience with the Voll True is that they have intonation problems. That's not an "internet rumor"; I'd call it an experience corroborated by a of a lot of people. I see a lot of that directed at the 1920's-era King, as well.

However, if the horn works for you, great: no need to write off the comments of other folks. As I've also mentioned, I wouldn't look at a horn that old for a professional alternative, anyhow: I'd much rather have a YAS-52 for the same price.

Additionally, my opinion on ANY 1920's-era horns has generally been, "Eh". If we're going to debate which is the best 1920's American make, that's unquestionably Conn (I can argue that successfully from several angles), however a better intonation horn is the Buescher True Tone. Overall tone might be Martin, but I'm not fond of the intonation.
 
Pete: I generally agree, with the exeception that I've never played an early Conn with a good scale - and I've played a few. Doesn't mean they aren't out there, I've just never played them.

The best Conn I played was one a fan brought to my gig a while back - an early '30's horn without reso pads. Good scale - soft voice compared to my Big B.

Still, my discovery of this King (a surprise gift from my nephew and his wife) just proved to me once again that assessing instruments based on brand-name alone is faulty. This horn is the match of my Ref 54, B&S Medusa, and other modern altos I've owned and/or played, including what I think was the best Yamaha 82Z I ever played.

Further, in my closet right now are three Buescher altos (early '20's TT, Big B, and a TH&C - all three are good players) and a '32 Cigar Cutter, which until I acquired the '23 King, was my first choice for public playing.

No, I'm not playing demanding sax-quartet music or classic pieces, just old jazz. But from my limited abilities, this King does everything my other altos do - and more. DAVE
 
Fair enough Pete. I'm not going to belabor the point on your own turf. Suffice to say that we don't agree 100% on this topic, nor do our personal experiences jive on this. Certainly isn't the first time, huh?;)

I will say that H.N. White made some very appreciable improvements with their Zephyr and Super 20 models there is no disputing, and those models are my King models of choice. However as I mentioned in my previous post, I believe the King models can hold their own against anything else available in the 1920's, and do not concur with many of the disparaging comments published about them.

Cheers.
 
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saxismyaxe said:
Fair enough Pete. I'm not going to belabor the point on your own turf. Suffice to say that we don't agree 100% on this topic, nor do our personal experiences jive on this. Certainly isn't the first time, huh?;)

I will say that H.N. White made some very appreciable improvements with their Zephyr and Super 20 models there is no disputing, and those models are my King models of choice. However as I mentioned in my previous post, I believe the King models can hold their own against anything else available in the 1920's, and do not concur with many of the disparaging comments published about them.

Cheers.
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I agree to disagree, but I just want folks to know -- especially if they haven't read anything else about the HN White King instruments -- that they need to be cautious and that your and Dave's experiences are not necessarily indicative of most people's experience.

Another way of looking at it, if someone told me that I had a choice of American 1920's horns in equivalent condition, I'd take the Buescher True-Tone first (because of intonation), the Conn New Wonder second (because of popularity), the Martin Handcraft third (because of the tone), HN White King a distant fourth and the Holton ... well, maybe someone would shoot me before I had to play a Holton :).

I've talked about 1920's horns, before, and in the future I should write a bit of an article about them. There really is a lot to say and a lot of people would definitely mention that the Buescher True Tone curved soprano of this era was one of the best (I've no opinion on that; I suck at soprano and never played a Buescher curvy -- Conns, yes. Straight horns from all but HN White, yes).
 
Pete: Just to make it clear, my intention was not to tout all King instruments, just to report in a King-thread that I just got one that is superb.

I've owned a King Saxello (YUCK!) and once played a fellow worker's King straight soprano (mediocre). I still have an H.N. White Silver King clarinet that plays decently enough. I am not a fan of King saxophones in general and have always preferred Buescher and Selmer-Paris saxophones.

This particular King alto is a good one. DAVE
 
Dave Dolson said:
Pete: Just to make it clear, my intention was not to tout all King instruments, just to report in a King-thread that I just got one that is superb.

I've owned a King Saxello (YUCK!) and once played a fellow worker's King straight soprano (mediocre). I still have an H.N. White Silver King clarinet that plays decently enough. I am not a fan of King saxophones in general and have always preferred Buescher and Selmer-Paris saxophones.

This particular King alto is a good one. DAVE
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CONFIRMATION.

:)

As I said, I really need to write up something somewhat in-depth on 1920's-era (plus or minus a bit) horns. One of the reasons is because I really do think that instruments of this era are much more variable in quality. A lot of people latch onto the hype of the instrument-of-the-moment and don't do enough research.

French-made horns from the 1920's (plus or minus) can be a little bit of a different matter: they have some different characteristics than American horns and a few are incredibly advanced, as far as keywork goes.

In any event, I just encourage people to step away from the HN White King: if you really, really want one, call up Vintagesax.com or someplace and playtest it thoroughly before buying. If you're looking for the "great" Kings, those are the Zephyr Specials, Zephyrs from appx. s/n 237xxx to 305xxx and early Super 20s (and Silver-Sonics, of course). They're big sound horns, but watch the intonation.
 
I suppose all commentary about vintage saxes is ultimately anecdotal.

FWIW, the late-30s HN White/King tenor that I was wistfully recalling above had much "better" intonation than my current Martin Dick Stabile. By that I mean it was less mouthpiece picky, and the intonation was less flexible. Crucially, the palm keys on the King weren't noticeably flat, whereas with the Martin I have to work hard to bring everything above Eflat up to pitch. My King had a lovely middle D. OTOH, as with my Martin, it took some effort with the King to play A-Bflat-B-C-C# in the middle register in tune with the same notes in the upper register. Both horns are allergic to narrow chambered mouthpieces, although the Martin somewhat moreso.

Also FWIW, I think the early Kings can be a great--i.e. not too risky--choice. I got mine for $650, which was pretty much equal to the market value of the case, the set-up, and the mouthpiece that came with it. I played it for a year and a half, and then sold it for about the same amount. By contrast, a nice Zephyr goes for around $2500 (two beauties at Worldwide right now BTW); Super20s are of course considerably more. This is sort of apples and oranges, but I really don't see the risk with cheapo King? A 4K Super20 could, however, be a real stinker, right?

Actually, I wouldn't mind hearing more on here about intonation issues on vintage horns.

With the exception of unsuitable mouthpiece choices, I'm becoming more and more convinced that MY intonation issues are just that--mine. Generalizing from my own flaws, I'd say most vintage horns have poor intonation because the player is playing too near to the top of the tone window, biting, or both. What's more, I'm more and more convinced that biting is a symptom not just of bad training, but also of consistently poor reed quality. So many reeds, or even entire boxes of reeds, are just unresponsive, and so I feel I have to bite more than I want to get them going. On vintage saxes especially, I think, this combination throws the intonation off, moreso than on a modern sax like my Yani T901.

Cheers,

Rory
 
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Helen said:
Thanks Chris! I hadn't seen this site before. Quick glance only so far, but it looks really nice.
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The HN White page is put together by some folks with ties to the HN White family, so it is "official".

When it first popped up on the web a few years back, I still owned saxpics.com and I had asked HNWhite.com's webmaster to do some things with me, as I was going to update my King pages. Never got around to it.

They have some fairly nice catalogs and such from the pre-Seeburg days. You might have to ask for them, tho.
 
I remember the advertisement featuring the trumpet case that fell off a car going 70 miles per hour. And yes, the King cases from that era were the best ever made.

The Fiske museum in California has a one-of-a-kind King Eb alto saxophone shaped like a Saxello. I told the owners of the King site about it. Maybe they can work out a deal to post photographs.
 
I recently had some e-mail discussion with the guy who runs that HN White web-site (his name is Chris). Seemed like a nice guy from those contacts.

Rory, I'm not one to think vintage saxophones have any more (or less) intonation problems than modern stuff. I own both and have had many of them (vintage and modern) in my closet over the years.

Of the vintage stuff I've had, the Bueschers were almost always good players with good scales. I can't say the same thing about Conns - every one I've owned had difficult intonation; so much so that I passed them on down the line. I've only played one Martin alto (from the '20's) and it played okay. My newly acquired King alto is my NEW favorite.

Nor am I one to think that mouthpieces are the problem. True, different horns have different tonal characteristics and certain mouthpieces can accentuate the positive (oh how I love musical quotes); but to intonation - not so much.

For instance (and I've written this many times), I prefer modern mouthpieces as opposed to vintage. I can't get a sound out of vintage pieces without going to extreme reed strengths, so I just ignore them. When I find a mouthpiece that fits my embouchure, it will play well on ALL of my instruments of similar size, regardless of era. I use modern pieces on my straight Buescher sops as well as my Yanagisawa sopranos. Same with altos - modern all the way even if the horn dates to the early '20's.

As to reeds - well, I've written this also. I agree that reed-makers put out inconsistent products. But I prep every reed in my cases and can make almost every reed in a box play well - for me. I know the reed-prep discussion goes on and on; some do, some don't. But if you are willing to try the reed-prep thing, you may find it a good way to go. DAVE
 
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