Your pricerange has a lot to do with any recommendation you give. If you can afford the Reference Alto, by all means, go for it! I would if I could. My second choice would be a Bronze Yanagisawa which would be priced similarily. If you can't afford anything near that pricerange, I do think the Antiguas are decent. I like the Jupiter SG869 better myself and you may find both priced similarly.

I apologize if I am breaking the forum rules but I just could not find out how to post an original query. Does anyone out there know anything about Jean-Baptiste saxophones? I am leaning towards purchasing their soprano sax model for $450. I don'i want to spend anymore than $800.

Ok, settle down people... Karebear1012 is only 13, if the profile is right. So why are we reccomending a pro horn to a 13 year old that may not be able to take advantage of all it's features. How about looking at some good mid range horns? Like Yahama, Keilwerth, or Selmer. Get one that's around $1500-2000, which would still be a huge step up from what you have now. As for pro horns, you have plenty of time to look at those later.

mac - That horn would be worth getting just to put a picture of Dubya on it. I suppose Kerry's picture would look good on an oboe... SaxBear - if you've got the green, there's a lot of high quality pro horns out there. Just play a few and you'll find one that works for you. If you've got a good instructor, have them go with you to help pick it out. I won't get into the brand/name game, but if you're prepared to spend a few grand, you'll find something sweet without too much trouble. With the exception of not being able to play high F#, I can get "pro sound" out of my original Selmer Bundy II. I couldn't sell it for more than about $150 - looks like hell but it plays wonderfully. Of course I favor my Selmer III, but I'm sure I could find just as much happiness in a top of the line Yamaha or Yanagisawa once I spent some time with it. You don't have to buy a pro horn to be a pro player, but good gear can definitely help. Check out a Selmer AS110 or Yamaha YAS-62II. If I was happy with my 'ol Bundy II for 20 some years, I'm sure you can make on of these babies last you as long as you want.

Being thirteen does things slightly. An 8th grade environment is not too friendly to shiney new things, so why not consider a used student-intermediate Yamaha or Selmer? You should find them in your pricerange all ready to go and you'll have less to worry about as far as the unruley fingers of others are concerned. (-leave off topic political views for other web forum discussions on 8/7/2004 2:12:19 PM.) (-leave off topic political views for other web forum discussions on 8/7/2004 2:12:19 PM. on 8/7/2004 2:12:36 PM.)

Mine was 3650 with a 2 year warantee, if I didn't take the warantee, it owuld have been 3450 - 2 years ago. Like I Have said many times, people are dumb. All they care about is saving money. We have people all the time bringing in ebay junk worth 5 - 20 dollars in its condition to save 50 bucks. last week a woman brought in a flute she bought at a pawn shop that was totald. We could well have fixed it, but there was more damage to it than what a new one costs. we have had situations like that a few times in the last week or so. we used to sell everything with a certain, no questions asked warantee, we would fix stuff that the player BROKE, not do to failure, but people would rather save a hundred bucks and spend about another 300 in the next 2-5 years on readjusting a new horn, so weve been selling everything next to cost, buisness has picked up considerably, since I started working there 2 months ago, we have sold about 30 altos...impressive. But anyways, if you are buyign out of state, you might as well refuse the warantee, cause you are going to spend more money shipping it to the shop it came form for service than getting it repaired at home. But if your in state, you would ahve to be stupid to buy something without warantee, especially a sax which will without exception go out of adjustment at least twice until it settles in.

hey Barimachine! I play alto sax, and i'm in the new england area. The commitment is pretty big, and I have tons of trumpet stuff also so it's pretty hard 4 me. I don't really have a price limit, my parents just want to get the best horn for the lowest possible price. thanks!