Hi Arak, regarding my "typical
Taiwanese" Trevor James flute.
Whats "typical" about it?
Doug Reeves

hows MAXTONE?

Hey, have just read through the posts and the replys are very interesting! Just one question what does everyone think of buffet flutes?
Thanks

Or this one? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=10183&item=7334386556&rd=1#ebayphotohosting

It`s an arbiter. Would a small dent make a big difference to playing?
Thanks

Would you count Emerson Piccolos as bad also because all that i have played or heard of have been highly reliable. But following your post i completely agree that yamaha are a very reliable make, at the moment i have a selmer intermediate flute and a jupiter intermediate sax with a yamaha student piccolo. I`m looking to buy a new flute and sax and piccolo over the space of the next 3 years, all of which WILL be yamaha due to the better quality and reliability!

does anyone have a MAXTONE flute?

My favourite flute brand is Miyazawa. I have a 24K Boston classic Miyazawa flute which is lovely to play. Yamaha is another brand I like but personaly I prefere Miyazawa. Check you www.miyazawa.com :-)

On the Maxtone flute...
If you can get this from a store and try against other flutes then by all means try it, but it looks to me to be one of those Ebay only brands.

On the Buffet flute...
The one I picked up recently has a large modern embouchure hole that projects well and the headjoint is a Cooper headjoint. The adjustment screws are made to not be visible, you can see them if you look under the keys. The Buffet I picked up was made in England.

But of course you should always try before you buy. If you find that flutes you are comparing have an equally beautiful tone. Try comparing how they project. Small vs large embouchure hole is night and day. The difference may be apparent, but not too major when you test, but when you practice on that large hole flute and switch to your smaller hole the difference can astronomical as you should have grown to use the extra dynamic room that the larger emouchure hole provides and find the small hole VERY constricting.

Doug wrote "Hi Arak, regarding my `typical
Taiwanese` Trevor James flute.
Whats `typical` about it?
Doug Reeves"

SOME typical characteristics of Taiwanese flutes include:
- soft key metal that easily bends out of adjustment.
- soft body metal that easily bends, dents, and makes the lower tenon loose.
- low quality silver plating, inclined to blister and wear through.
- non-level tone holes, increasing servicing needs, and making time-consuming problems for technicians.
- sloppy pivots.
- steel parts more inclined to rust.
- `thin` tone.
- weak sound in the region of second octave E.
- zealous marketing, making out virtues which are not really there.
- As with Nike shoes, enormous profiteering by the distributors and sales outlets.

I`m not saying Dean Martin is all of these, but it is at least some, and probably a few more that I have overlooked. It is a while since I saw one, but I DO recall not being impressed.

Stacked up alongside a decent, high quality student flute, they just do not measure up, yet they are typically marketed as equals. It would not be so bad if they were half the price. Just think of a hardware store.... if something is made in Taiwan or China, you expect it to be inferior, but you also expect to pay FAR less - many TIMES LE less that what you would for quality product.

However in the near future all this is likely to change somewhat, just as Japan changed from making junk to making top quality product, and eventually charging accordingly.

CatherineG, I too think that Miyazawa flutes are wonderful. It was tough deciding between the Powell flute that I have now and a Miyazawa.

Hi Arak,
Thanks for the faults list, unfortunately after playing my Trevor James flute for upwards of 1000 hours over the last two years,
I am unable to put a tick against
any of them. My last flute was a Yamaha (and it was`nt a cheap model) and I could give you
at least 5 ticks against that. I eventually dumped it for a
Trevor James.

Doug Reeves

Hi, Piko thanks for your help! In the end I managed to find a Yamaha 211s MarkII on eBay for £70! so *fingerscrossed* i got myself a good deal.

Thanks again

Hello Posters!

I don`t mean to get you all fired up again on this same subject... I found your postings by chance when searching for help on flute brands. I am trying to decide which would be better for my daughter who is needing her own flute for symphonic band next month for school. She has been playing for 3 years on a rented Artly.... I read alot of bad posts on you site about this brand..... so I am glad I ran across your site before making a decision. Please keep in mind she is in 6th grade and who knows if this is something she will continue... although she says she loves it and HAS been playing for three years already... so can anyone on this site recomend a good flute?

As your daughter has been playing for a few years I would recommend taking her to a shop that sells a variety of different flutes and have her try them out to see which is best. She should check for response, articulation, dynamic capability vs her old flute.

She should take he old flute with her so that she can compare.

If the old flute is in good condition adding a hand-cut head joint can make a dramatic change in her flute playing. If she picks up another student/intermediate model it may not be that much of an improvement over her old flute, but a professional headjoint can make up 60-70% of overall sound the flute produces.

I have been using an armstrong flute for 5 years and its been to the shop once for a loose screw.