Yes, that one is like the little brother of my 1924 Conn new wonder Tenor.  

Yes, I'd agree ..... not the easiest to start with, though I started on mine less than a year ago.  The difficulties are, as was mentioned, with the keywork, which is very clunky on the tenor, but certainly can be gotten used to.  A light grip helps enormously.  Now, however, I love it and find modern horns more difficult to finger. 

The sound is great, big and lush.  Well worth any extra effort.  On my tenor, also, I've had to work to get past a few quirks, like the G2 wanting to split into two tones, and the low D being a bit difficult to keep it in the low register (wanting to jump to D2).  But, a good teacher and some attention cleared this up months ago.

I couldn't really say about the comment above regarding playing the horn in tune.  My tenor is fully restored, which may help .... But, it plays easily in tune.  Or, I have no trouble playing it in tune and I'm in my first year on it.  It could just be me, as I play other things and have for years .... I have a good ear for pitch, but it doesn't require any effort at all for me to play in tune up and down the scale.  My teacher played it and thought it was the best tenor he'd ever played.  In his opinion:  great intonation.  Again, that could possibly have something to do with the restoration.  Even up into the altissimo fingerings ....... easy to play in tune.

I'd probably defer to the poster above about intonation, if he has a lot of experience (I don't).  He could be right.  It's a very flexible horn, easy to bend the pitch if you want.  Also, I think a big bore horn, as it's very wide open playing.

I say, go for it!  The sound is really nice.  


The Turtle