Hi
First, sorry for my english, i'm french... I'll try to do my best

I play the flute since 1 year and I progress quite fastly, I have a cheap Thomann flute (90€) that works quite well but has very sticky pads (apparently the pads are made of poor material quality, each time I clean them they start to stick again after 5 min of playing...) I bought this only to see if I like this instrument.

Now I know I want to play the flute during all my life (I'm addicted :D), so I decided to buy a new, "real" studient flute. I tried 3 flutes at the woodwind shop, a Pearl 525, a Trevor James (don't remember the model sorry) and a Yamaha 281.

I immediately felt in love with the pearl's sound, it has a sort of clean and sweet tone, and it's seems easy to play throught all the 3 octaves... I played a nice highest and lowest C at the first try !

It's nice BUT I forgot to try making different tones with this flute. I haven't any idea of the expression capability of this flute. I would like to be able for example to play dull (harsh) or "gentle" (mellow, soft) sounding low notes, as I can actually do on my flute.

An interesting thing i've noticed it's the different embouchure hole cuts :
- the Pearl has a large circle-shaped hole
- the yamaha is a bit smaller and more square-shaped
- the trevor james is a bit rectangular

I wonder if it's possible to link a "tone type" to a hole shape...

I also saw that some risers were longer/shorter than others, but I don't remember which flutes had a long/short riser...


What do you know/think about the Pearl student headjoints ?
Are some headjoints more flexible than others (I mean the ability to produce different tones), or it just depends on the player ?

While testing the flutes I really had the feeling that the Pearl was made for me, but I don't know if a "too easy instrument" may be a trap ?

Finally, which flute do you recommend me ? (I can spend up to 1000€ - not more)


Thanks for reading my topic

Pearl flutes have a nice and sweet tone since the 505 to the gold maestra models. The model recomended for students is the 525 and the 665, they have a warm tone and they are not so much expensive.
Pearl flutes have 4 types of headjoint cut: vivo, vivace, bolero, classico, forte and Calore. (te bests for me are calore and forte)
I recommend you these models:
Pearl 525 ($700)
Pearl 665 ($1025)

Thank you for your advice !

Today I went to the woodwind shop and tryed again a Pearl and a Yamaha, I confirm that I prefer the Pearl for everything :
- Better tone (easily noticeable when you play a middle D, has like a more "feminine" tone)
- Better projection, maybe because of the bigger headjoint hole
- Softer mechanism
- As on the Yamaha, I success to produce different tones, especially in the first octave, where I can do a soft or dull sound

I think I'll go with the 665 RBE

Strange thing, in France nearly all flutes are inline, I don't know why since the offset g is far more comfortable for the hand... ... also there are only C-foot even for intermediate flutes, so if I want the RBE I'm forced to buy at Thomann (but I will not complain, Thomann has better prices than most of french resellers ^^)

The 500/quantz series have very very free blowing headjoints that you may outgrow quickly (easy tops, no bottom).

When checking out flutes pick out notes in the low/mid/high range play them full and colorful and push the sound as big and beautiful as it can get before you get to the point of cracking.
A flute where you can't hit that point of breaking... may be a flute you can grow into. A flute which breaks with just a medium breath with little effort on your part may choke your growth as you can already outplay the flute.

(On the flip-side, there are professional flutes that seem crazy bottomless and maybe you don't want a flute that is so cavernous that you must practice often just so you can reach it's sweet spot... or always be in an unsatisfying middle place)