My first post here, because I may have done the saxophone bassist.clay mentions, if the counselor's initials were WW (hi WW, if you see this). My comments on bare brass & delacquering & refinishing have appeared elsewhere, at length, and they're close enough to what they are today. Mainly I tell people that we don't get to experience whether refinishing affects sound or response, or how, because every time I do a (hand, not buffing) refinishing job an overhaul is involved. It may or may not make a difference. What people on the web take for "scientific" discovery is not scientific; in these questions you always run into difficulties either of scientists not understanding how instruments are put together, or react, or all the factors other than wave or resonance theories related to bore which may be at play, or else laypersons who don't have the physics expertise. All I can tell you is no one has ever been sorry they had it done, when I have done it. Regarding relacquered instruments, you can never tell what the real value -- the inherent value, not the price tag -- of a saxophone is until you play it in its ultimate condition. Some of the best saxophones in each make/model I have worked on have been relacquered instruments that were, by the standards of most, badly overbuffed. There are so many factors that influence what any given saxophone will do, or is capable of doing. When it really comes down to what's true, saxophones are like people: there are a lot of general observations that hold true, when you look at people as aggregate groups, but you really have to pay attention to the particular saxophone in question if you want to know what that particular instrument's true nature is, and what it's true value can be.

"All I can tell you is no one has ever been sorry they had it done, when I have done it." ^ not intended to be boastful, though it is. Intended to be informational, based on having stripped & refinished many saxophones. Also, please don't misunderstand my post: I can't think of any circumstance, or reason, for ever recommending machine buffing or performing it myself, although I believe Anderson's does do a little buffing when they do silver plating for me, and their results are ALWAYS on the positive side. That is another question, and I do not mean to tout plating when I say that. Actually, I believe the change in response when I have necks (for example) replated by Anderson's may be more related to how the new silverplate interacts with moisture (it causes it to bead, instead of sheet). Actually, this may also be related to customers' experiences with delacquered instruments when I refinish them. The process seems to cause the exposed brass to cause water to bead, as well. I am not saying this is the cause, only that it is a suspect that people rarely if ever mention (i.e. the interaction of the surface with moisture) in these often repeated "debates" about sound/response and finish.

I too have worked on many horns that I have stripped and hand polished in lieu of relac'ing. I haven't done enough relac'ing to compare the saleability of the 2, stripped and polished to relac'd but the issue that seems to be dragged on forever is that everyone seems to think once a horn is relac'd, which entails buffing, it deems the horn inferior due to the removal of brass mat'l. What I think people have to understand is that if the horn is done at a shop where great care is taken to not take off mat'l , just enough to make the brass gleam b4 spraying, it not only has an imperceptable affect on the tone of the horn but brings back the luster and beauty of polished brass. Factory relac jobs are done by people who have to do this all day and probably never played or bought a horn in their life but are real good at buffing the crap out of a horn to make it shine and move on to the next one. Do you think these people really stop and monitor how much they have taken off or at what level the sheen is on the brass to know when to quit? I doubt it. Some people like the grungey look of a horn with as little as 30-10% of the lac. left on a horn, some don't, but regradless, the point is if a relac job is done with care it will have no affect on the horns final tone and it is nuts to say that it is inferior in any way. I would dare anyone to be able to hear the difference in a horns sound b4 and after. I guess it comes down to - to each their own. If you feel good about your axe, whether it be shiney or grungey and it makes you feel better to play it, that is what counts.