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My favorite Selmer Altos

Ed

Founder
Staff member
Administrator
My top five:

1. Selmer Mark VI - A classic.
2. Selmer (Super) Balanced Action - An even more lyrical horn than the VI but intonation is a little less precise.
3. Selmer Balanced Action - Inline keywork. no tilting table keys. Beautiful tone. Intonation can be interesting on these.
4. Selmer Super Action 80 - Great intonation. Brighter than a VI but not as bright as a III. Great tone.
5. Selmer Super Action 80 Serie II - Great all around horn. No surprises.

Selmer has been trying to live down the VI since 1974. The VII's deserve an honorable mention along with the new Reference Horns. I find the III to be extremely bright to the point of them sounding shrill. I also think they lack depth to their tone.
 
It pains me to say this but I like the 82Z a lot more than any 54 alto I've played yet. The 54's are beautiful looking horns. They did a much better job on the alto than they did on the tenor. The key work is not as nice as the VI. The action doesn't have the same snap. The tone is nice but lacks that certain je ne sais quoi. Still I've played some nice examples but nothing that makes me think "wow I need to get this and put my 87k away". Then again I have yet to play an alto that I like as much as my 87k VI.

I liked the old Couf altos and loved the tenors.

The strange thing about the 54 is that it is a better horn than the VI in a number of ways. It's much more consistent up and down the stack. The tuning is more precise. The build quality seems comparable. They are by no means a bad horn. Even though I like the Serie II a bit better I still think they're by far the best horn Selmer has put out since the VI. I think it's a horn that lacks character compared to the VI. Now some people don't like the character of the VI which I think is brought out by the fact that the VI is not consistent up and down the stack, it's not a horn that has locked in intonation, the palm keys are low, they're variable in their quality (in that there are great VI and dogs), and you have to pay a fortune for one.

I don't get to play a ton of alto anymore since I converted into a tenor player and then a bari player but whenever I do get to play my VI alto in a band situation I am always really happy after playing. It's the kind of horn that just puts a smile on your face. My son told me he wants to play saxophone so I picked up a JK stencil for his first horn (hey he'll be able to play it in four years) and that horn could take him as far as he wants to go. My wife said to me one night why don't you just give him your Selmer when he gets good enough. I'm sure the look of shock and horror on my face was fun to watch. I told her "he can have the horn when I'm dead and he's pried it out of my cold hands". I meant that with love of course! :D The next week I found a Super Action 80 that turned out to be a really great horn. It's due back from my tech next week and will serve as my backup until I give it to him. This way he'll have his own Selmer too!
 
I've played a small host of Mark VI altos -- including one low A alto -- and I've liked them all. I was ... unimpressed by the Super 80.

So was my wife. She decided against the S80 in 1981 and bought herself a Selmer USA Omega. Which she still has. It's a nice horn: it's a compromise between the Mark VI, Mark VII and the S80. It's not heavy sounding or feeling. It's got extremely good intonation. Needs an overhaul, though. Ed, I think I need a raise to cover it.

I'm sorry. I'll let y'all go back to discussing which serial number ranges are the best for your VIs :p.
 
I was surprised by the Super Action 80 I picked up. The horn had been played a lot so I may have just got really lucky with that horn. In spite of a host of flaws that VI's have (low palm keys, not consistent up and down the stack, flat bell keys in my serial number range, intonation quirks) I still haven't found anything that I like playing near as much. I do have a killer Buescher 140 alto that really sings but I still find the VI just does it for me.
 
Since I'm apparently one of those dinosaurs who loves their Mark VIs, I must admit that my alto VI is one of my least favorites.

I do have a killer horn. It is a later model (2403XX) that everyone else who has played it loves. I have turned down many a "can I buy it from you" offers. I do play the sax, but not very much. I prefer my late model 6M that I found in a pawn shop and paid $400 for.

I don't really think that alto is my main saxophone voice. I am really a large horn player. But on those occasions where I do have to play alto, usually in a jazz setting, I find the 6M is closer to what I think of as "my alto voice".
 
The VII's are pretty cool horns. The ergonomics give them a unique look. I played one for quite a while and felt that this model was the closest Selmer ever came to sounding like a Conn. I've always been fond of the S80II alto's. The ones I have played have been consistently good horns. The III's are nice and have the best palm keys to my hands. The tone is good, but I still prefer the emphasis on the lower partials found on the II. Oddly enough my tenor preference is reversed. The Ref is close to the II. I like the darker sound, but there is something about the II I still prefer.

The best Selmer alto I've ever played was in fact a Mark VI owned by a local pro. The thing just screams.
 
I've played/owned a MKVI alto, a Super Action 80 II, and a Mark VII alto.......my favorite is the Mark VII which is the horn I currently use with a Buescher 140 Aristocrat as a backup. I think the VII alto is one of the best Selmer ever made....for me anyway; everyone is different to some degree... ;) like I know ya'll haven't heard this before.
 
:cool: no, Pete, but I brought the beer....does that work?
 
Well, I don't drink and I wouldn't be allowed to, anyhow (medication), but I think you made the rest of the group happy. I'll drive!
 
not a beer fan, eh? well doggone it I was gonna save the real good stuff for myself, but now I guess I'll have to share......at least it's with good company :)

good thing Pete's gonna drive us
 
All of the Selmer altos that I've ever owned:

Modele 26 4,8xx....sold
Balanced Action 23,xxx....still mine
mk6 58,xxx gold plated....still mine
mk6 210,xxx bought new in '73, sold in '75
mk6 226,xxx bought new in '75, sold in '03
serie II 382,xxx bought new in '87, sold in '96
ref54 really high serial # I can't read stuff that small anymore bought new in '03....still mine

The modele 26 was a loaner that I was transporting back to the repair guy, I was working with the repair guy in a few days, and the guy he loaned it out to gave it to me to give back at the upcoming gig. So in the few days that I had the horn, I played on it and liked it. So the repair guy sold it to me for a very cheap price. It didn't have a front high f key on it. So I messed around on the horn for about a year, used it as a backup for my 226 mk6. A guy saw the horn and offered me a lot more than I paid for it, so I sent it to it's new home. It had great intonation, and a great speaking voice. But it was very old, and I believed that it was haunted. I would be playing a tune, "Tune Up," or "Four," or something, improvising on the changes, and all of a sudden I would be playing like "Valdres March", or some kind of military type sounding tune. Just like the horn took over or something. So this would weird me out a bit, and I figured a previous owner was haunting the horn. So it was a little scary to me. So I sold it.

The BA is beautiful, mint original lacquer, very sharp engraving. Very light flute like action, and a very pretty singing sound when my chops are up to task. You need chops for this horn.

The early gold mk6 has a pretty spongy mechanism. The low c# on the spatula was not perfected yet, and took me a long time to get used to. It has that flat spring down on the bottom, and I don't think that selmer had perfected it yet. I bought this horn around Christmas of '96 and left immediately for a tour of Japan without giging or even practising on the horn. The spongy action got me all discombobulated on my first job of the tour, a quintet gig with me and a trumpet player on the front line. So I stayed up all night practising very softly in my hotel room, scales and arpeggios, and the next night I was fiddlin'. This horn is a dream come true, and I'd be playing it now if it wern't for the ref.

The 210,xxx mk6 was my first Selmer alto, I sold my Buescher 400 to finance it's purchase. My next horn spoke a little better than this one and Charles Ponte gave me a good trade in price. So I traded it for the next horn.

The 226,xxx mk6, the next horn. This horn had a high f# key, and played much better than the 210 horn. The mechanism was just very sweet, speed was no problem, and it had a fat, pithy tone. I used to play this horn from early in the morning, 9:00am, to 2 or 3 the next morning. Day in and day out, for years. The pearls and the settings they were in were almost razor thin when I sold this horn in '03. I remember seeing lots and lots of play between the rods and the posts for the bell keys between a couple of overhauls. But I felt that the horn still was in the process of breaking in when I sold it. A lot of people knock Selmers, but I know how this horn held up during a phase in my life when I was totally obsessed with playing a saxophone. Those mk6's were built like tanks.

The Serie II that I had played a little stuffy. The tone didn't ring. It had a fat tone, and the action was pretty comfortable, but it was hard for me to sing on that horn. So it was sold.

The Reference is by far the finest alto I've owned, the finest saxophone I've owned. It does all things well for me. It sings well, is fat, it's piercing when I need it to be, has a big sonorous middle register, and it's got power that is lacking in the 6's. I thought that Selmer would never build an alto saxophone that could replace the mk6 for me, but I really like this ref that I'm playing.
 
I'm mainly a tenor and soprano player, however, I keep an alto for those occassions that it's called for. I owned a nice MK VI alto for 30 years and within the last two years decided to purchase a silver 82Z and subsequently a Ref. 54. The Z was great, however, after owning it for a while I found the upper register started to get to me ... thin and piercingly bright, regardless of mouthpiece combo. Great rich sounding horn nonetheless and the best Yamaha has come out with in my view. It certainly has a lot of similar characteristics of a nice later MK VI, however, it is a brighter horn for sure. For the most part I was happy until I played a Ref. 54. In fact, I played several and one in particular blew me away. Effortless, rich, resonant, smooth, and powerful is how I would describe it. Perhaps the best alto I've ever played. I'm a 54 convert. Goes to show different stokes for different folks. Isn't it great we have such a nice selection of great horns to choose from today. Sax innovation has come a long way.
 
It is nice that there are many nice horns on the market these days. There's also been a realization that some of the classic American horns are worth revisiting. I've seen a number of guys out with old 6M's/10M's and Aristocrats. You see a fair amount of Martin's and the occasional 400 TH&C. Lots of great choices out there outside of the Selmer world (remember I do play VI's on alto and tenor but my backups aren't VI's).
 
Several years ago, I gave my MKVI alto (serial 110xxx) to my son. Then I got it back when he went through a nasty divorce, mainly to protect it from HER.

A few weeks ago he finally took it home with him. It is a nice horn alright, but not my favorite. Maybe it was the grossly over-valued nature of the thing that kept me from gigging with it.

I also had a BA a while back (overhaul by Rheuben Allen) - I sold it.

But my two "keepers" are a '32 Cigar Cutter and my Ref 54. The 54's intonation and feel are superb but when comparing it to my CG, I like the CG better. The main reason is the focused, sweet tone of the CG even though the 54 is stronger - and feels wonderful under my fingers. No comparison to the best Yamaha 82Z (lacquered) that I ever played and once owned.

The Ref 54 does have a deep, warm sound to it, but that translates into a lack of projection in ensemble playing. Oh I know, I'm probably the last person in the room to judge its projection, but it does make a difference to me, from behind the thing. Still, it is such a gorgeous, luxurious horn that I'll keep it forever.

Another factor in the 54's favor is that every one I've played had a consistent, similar sound. That alone is unusual among saxophones of the same model - I've played about six 54's and all sounded the same.

All that being said, I think my TH&C alto is tops. DAVE
 
Selmer Artist LTD 52 and Selmer Standard?

Can anyone enlighten me on this two models by selmer.They are for sale and I am thinking of buying one of them. They both want 1200.00 for each.
Thanks, Manny Chavez :-D
 
Manny: I am not familiar with the models you listed. If they aren't Selmer-Paris saxophones, then I'd think they are just one of the many Asian-made imports with various names stamped on them. That isn't necessarily bad, but I advise you to play them both before buying. I could be wrong, though. Someone may correct me.

Heck, they could be terrific horns, but for that kinda money, I'll bet you could find a really nice old Buescher or Conn that normally would blow the socks off the Asian imports. And by Asian, I don't mean Yanagisawa or Yamaha.

Joe Squeak goes to China, buys a dozen gross of a no-name saxophone, slaps his favorite label on there and voila, you have the Squeak Special, that he claims is desired by all professionals.

Same with Selmer, I fear. And many unsuspecting folks would pay a premium for a Selmer labeled Asian import just because of the name. And you well may be buying the Squeak Special with a Selmer name on it - and paying for the name alone. Yes, there are some store-brand Asian imports that are quite good. I own a few. Dave Kessler's (Las Vegas) come to mind.

DAVE
 
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