I have 2 Buffet clarinets. The Bb is 40 years old and the A is 30 years old. I love them for their resonant tone and fluid motion. I started out on a student Yamaha and found it very hardy and a fantastic instrument for a beginner.

I have a R. Malerne Paris Standard clarinet with a James Pyne barrel and a J.D. Hite mouthpiece. Sounds absolutely amazing.

I am not sure of the best clarinet, but I have what is said to be the best: a wooden Buffet clarinet. I do know that that is better than yamaha.

It seems that you all have the best intentions (except for Music_Ace - you egotistical loser) but you are all misguided by the brainwashing of todays clarinet teachers. I was fortunate enough to not have a teacher myself and I bypassed that slippery slope of Buffet-Crampon advertissment.

Vito is by far the best clarinet maker thus proven by the fact that the greatest clarinet player to ever live played these instruments. I am speaking of course of Marcellus. As previously stated, he played two Bb Vito Clarinets - one for Bb work and the other for music written for the A clarinet (he was a master transposer). I am now in possesion of these particular instruments and I can say without a doubt that they are identical to the Vitos produced today.

I am so tired of hearing - Tosca Tosca Tosca. My Tosca plays in tune - my Tosca is expensive. My Vitos cost me way more than a Tosca and they were worth every nanopenny. The intonation is as perfect as the setting sun and they even have little lines etched in them to look like real wood.

I am currently assembling a legal team to investigate the possiblities of banning Music_Ace from owning/playing a clarinet. We are close to success. Children should be learning to spell and not wasting time with music. Get them an iPod and leave the actual music MAKING to the pros.

Do not I repeat DO NOT buy your child an instrument. You will only realizer too late that they have wasted their childhood on nonsensical shenanigans.

-Phil

Buffet. Even their intermediate model--the E11--can produce a world-class clarinet sound given the right mouthpiece/reed/ligature setup. I own one and I can personally say that it is made to very high quality standards; it has received daily use for several years now with virtually no repairs other than modifications I've made (such as a few cork pads on the upper joint, etc.) The banana key on the upper joint, however, was aggravating as well as (some might argue this) utterly useless, so I cut it off. Never regretted it. I use an Ignatius Gennusa-Zinner mouthpiece and my Buffet has quite a good tone.

Hey Fleetwood Hack,

I'm guessing by your post that you consider your sound to be "world class". You probably never even tried a Vito. You've got to think out of the box. In this case you need to think out-of-the-box-y sound that you get from your buffet.

If you don't own a Tosca or a Vito you shouldn't consider yourself worthy of posting here. This thread is for the ELITE-ONLY poster. Even if you owned a Tosca I probably wouldn't read your post. I've got no patience for people that choose to play on crappy clarinets.

So go get yourself a Vito and join up with the big boys of the online clarinet world. You'll wish you had done it 65 years ago when you were in college. It's THAT GOOD.

Don't worry about trying a bunch of them cause they're all exactly the same - precision manufactured to exacting specifications. When it arrives you will see that you can just play it OUT-OF-THE-BOX, baby!

I feel insignificant. I have an artley It sucks