Yes, synthetic reeds are the way to go for beginners. For reasons that will give the player no problems with using a reed. It's well documented that cane reeds are only 4 pout 10 that will allow you to freely blow and for a beginner this issue could stop the learning. I still use synthetic reeds for practice and then spend days, months, years searching for the ultimate cane reed for performing. In my early days of playing, putting on a new reed was the most scary event of my life. I wish I had discovered synthetic reeds much earlier on, they give you 90% satisfaction Oh yes, you will always come across 1or 2 that will sound below the standard.

Once you put reverb on the sax or play in an acoustically enhanced room, the sound will be hard to tell if it's a cane reed or Synthetic. However, the best I ever sounded was using a cane reed - La Voz. I still have a wardrobe full of unopened boxes of La Voz, which I plan to use when the time is right, but for now I want to prove to myself that synthetic is almost 85% of what you would get after spending days and months trying different cane reeds to get the sound you like.

In summary, save hours, days and weeks of frustration by avoiding cane reeds altogether and focus on your playing by using synthetic reeds such as Fibrecell.