Posted this on another forum but thought why not here too.
What the... is going on with Selmer Paris quality control. OK, I've seen some poor quality control from Selmer Paris before but this is a first. This is a Serie II baritone, bought new about four years ago. I'm not sure how much this costs here but probably around $10,000 and very possibly more.
Several tone holes had severe dents in them! I attached photos of the least worst of the dented ones because it was easier to take a photo. At least for this one the pad still sealed, though see the attachment to see how great that was... and the too small pad with gaps from the key cup edge was a repeating problem on this saxophone too.
I guess if it worked, you could call it a cosmetic problem... but several other tone holes had dents also lowering the edge severely in a few spots, causing leaks, much worse than the one in the attached photo. You might think this happened from the player bumping the instrument. No, this was definitely without a doubt from the factory.
First, the damage was in places hidden under a lot of keys where it would be impossible to reach without causing damage to many more parts. Second, the pads come from the factory with a seat showing. The seat (or lack of it) exactly matched the shape of the damaged tone holes. If a key or tone hole bends, there will be a sign of the old and new seats, but there was only one seat. This means it didn't happen during shipping either or anything like that. So this is how Selmer sent the saxophone to the dealer and this is how the store sold the saxophone to the player. The owner was obviously not aware of any problem. I have no idea whether the dealer noticed the problems or not.
It's rare that a problem annoys me enough that I bother posting about it. In spite of all their problems I actually like Selmer Paris saxophones, both old and new models. I think some of their models are really very good with great intonation and tone. Which is why these problems are even more annoying.
What the... is going on with Selmer Paris quality control. OK, I've seen some poor quality control from Selmer Paris before but this is a first. This is a Serie II baritone, bought new about four years ago. I'm not sure how much this costs here but probably around $10,000 and very possibly more.
Several tone holes had severe dents in them! I attached photos of the least worst of the dented ones because it was easier to take a photo. At least for this one the pad still sealed, though see the attachment to see how great that was... and the too small pad with gaps from the key cup edge was a repeating problem on this saxophone too.
I guess if it worked, you could call it a cosmetic problem... but several other tone holes had dents also lowering the edge severely in a few spots, causing leaks, much worse than the one in the attached photo. You might think this happened from the player bumping the instrument. No, this was definitely without a doubt from the factory.
First, the damage was in places hidden under a lot of keys where it would be impossible to reach without causing damage to many more parts. Second, the pads come from the factory with a seat showing. The seat (or lack of it) exactly matched the shape of the damaged tone holes. If a key or tone hole bends, there will be a sign of the old and new seats, but there was only one seat. This means it didn't happen during shipping either or anything like that. So this is how Selmer sent the saxophone to the dealer and this is how the store sold the saxophone to the player. The owner was obviously not aware of any problem. I have no idea whether the dealer noticed the problems or not.
It's rare that a problem annoys me enough that I bother posting about it. In spite of all their problems I actually like Selmer Paris saxophones, both old and new models. I think some of their models are really very good with great intonation and tone. Which is why these problems are even more annoying.