I know Gemeinhardts are good, and I bought a refurbished one at my music store for around $315. Is that a good deal I made? I mean, the flute sounds terrific but is it a really good flute? Just curious...

I also play a Gemeinhardt, open hole, but I changed the head joint to a professional headjoint. and Mine sounds great, so clean, and dark, not airy at all. But I think its a very good deal. The 3SH, which the 3 stands for openhole, and SH means solid silver headjoint. So i think ist very good. If has a B foot it would be a 3SHB

*open-hole, and has a B foot...sorry about that

I agree with Micron. I find any of the cuts of headjoints on Gemeinhardts to be disappointing. They also tend to lack volume. If you are able to, I would recommend trying to put a professional headjoint on it, like flutesandpiccolos did. I would not bother with trying to switch to a different cut by Gemeinhardt however. Even if you can find a relatively inexpensive Yamaha EC headjoint, you would most likely benefit.

I also agree with Micron and Kara, first you need to be a good player, then line up a gemmie, yamaha, jupiter, pearl, see which ones play the best...

Thanks everyone! Although my feelings have become slightly clouded about Gemeinhardts, I still think I am going to keep it. For some reason, I can get a beautiful sound out of it-not just me, I have been told by some other flute players!!(not to sound stuck up). All the third and the few fourth octave notes I can actually get out sound great, at least compared to our school flute, haha. (its a first act ) I really appreciate the input!

again I agree with Micron, the reason I want my students to have really good flutes from the beginning is for the exact reason he stated, when a flute has an easier response in all registers the students do better and stay interested and want to continue to keep playing...

that was how i gravitated toward the Jupiter company some years ago, so many of my students played them and did so well with them, that I contacted the head man and approached them about being an artist/clinician...

I don't know, tough. Some of the older "M" series Gemeinhardt models were identical to the Yamaha student models at the time in sound. I think it's that Yamaha has improved their line over time and Gemeinhardt kind of stood still technology wise. As a result, despite the tone being very close, the Yamaha is without a doubt easier to play.

That said, you can pick up one of Gemeinhardt's top end models for well under $1000 used(solid silver, no less), and with a simple headjoint swap(Yamaha EC/Pearl/etc), it'll easily equal most "Pro" flutes.

Gemeinhardt are good construction-wise at the top end, it's the headjoint that is suffering. So if you just need a good pro level body to go with a custom headjoint, it can save you a lot of money.

Note - I've known people who have bought $5000+ flutes and tossed the stock headjoint as well - it's more common than you'd imagine to shop for a body and/or decide that the OEM offering was inadequate.