I have in my hands a Selmer USA TS100 or Omega (not the later TS110).
I'll provide a review of mechanics compared to Selmer Paris (VII and VI & maybe early SA80) of the day and also playability.
I an currently comparing it to a mk VII as from what I suspect the original SA80 (no Series identification) seems to be just like a VII except it got rid of the large table keys and it may have introduced the spring plugs, plus I have a VII right now.
The first thing that I see is that this is nothing like a Selmer Paris horn. It has short cuts all around. Physical quality is great but to think this came from the same "tooling" as the Paris horns seems, at first glance, to be incorrect. We'll find out more as we dissect it.
edit: put in tooling instead of "mold"
I do have some information outlined here that I did in the past
http://www.ClarinetPerfection.com/snsax.htm#Selmer(USA)
First thing noticed was that if someone put a blindfold on me and asked me to guess what horn it felt like I would guess not a Paris horn - VII, SA80 or VI, not a Yamaha but just like my old Cannonball Global Big Bell Series horn. Of course, Cannonball probably didn't exist back then. This is before tweaking or even playing at this point.
Of course, most horns can be made to play extremely well. The Selmers are known for their "core" tone. The VIs are known for their feel and velvelty keywork when properly setup. We will do some tweaking to this instrument to get it to a very good playability. We'll also try some home "fixin' " in a few items so players can check their horns for some quick improvements that they can do at home.
I'll provide a review of mechanics compared to Selmer Paris (VII and VI & maybe early SA80) of the day and also playability.
I an currently comparing it to a mk VII as from what I suspect the original SA80 (no Series identification) seems to be just like a VII except it got rid of the large table keys and it may have introduced the spring plugs, plus I have a VII right now.
The first thing that I see is that this is nothing like a Selmer Paris horn. It has short cuts all around. Physical quality is great but to think this came from the same "tooling" as the Paris horns seems, at first glance, to be incorrect. We'll find out more as we dissect it.
edit: put in tooling instead of "mold"
I do have some information outlined here that I did in the past
http://www.ClarinetPerfection.com/snsax.htm#Selmer(USA)
First thing noticed was that if someone put a blindfold on me and asked me to guess what horn it felt like I would guess not a Paris horn - VII, SA80 or VI, not a Yamaha but just like my old Cannonball Global Big Bell Series horn. Of course, Cannonball probably didn't exist back then. This is before tweaking or even playing at this point.
Of course, most horns can be made to play extremely well. The Selmers are known for their "core" tone. The VIs are known for their feel and velvelty keywork when properly setup. We will do some tweaking to this instrument to get it to a very good playability. We'll also try some home "fixin' " in a few items so players can check their horns for some quick improvements that they can do at home.
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