I used to play a 1920 buescher elkhart alto sax. It was one of the best saxophones I've ever played. The only thing that was bad about it was the key layout. It had a great tone. Last year i played on a student model yamaha...it was absolutely awful! It gave me the most technical problems i've ever had! The tone was absolute rubbish! Hope that helped

Early Bueschers certainly have their fans.  The True Tone horns from the 1920s and early 1930s have a reputation for a sweet sound and more accurate intonation than the Kings and Conns from the same era.  The Buescher Aristocrat was a top line horn from 1932 to about 1950.  It became more of a student horn after that, but a very good student horn.  Selmer bought Buescher around 1960.  The Selmer Bundy I student horn was a rebranded Buescher Aristocrat.  The Buescher 400 "Top Hat and Cane" horns produced during the 1940s and 1950s are great horns for a classic big band sound.  Buescher keywork, like the keywork on all vintage horns, isn't as refined as the keywork on modern horns, but it was good enough to play lots of fine music on. 

I like vintage horns, but there's no need to talk sheet about modern horns either.  Yamahas are famous for being well made, reliable, accurate, and easy to play.  You either like their more modern sound or you don't.  It's hard to make categorical statements about modern horns, because there are so many different models built around different budgets and sound concepts.  IMHO the profusion of quality Asian horns from the likes of P. Mauriat, Cannonball, Macsax, Kessler, Antigua, TM, and Saxgourmet, is making new horns a decent value proposition for the first time in decades.