I started on an Armstrong 104. It had a great scale (played in tune with itself) but had a very stiff, unresponsive headjoint. My dad gave me a Gemeinhardt 3SHB for graduation, and I was absolutely blown away by how well the headjoint could respond.
Fast forward 15 years, I got married and got busy, but took the flute up again, with my beloved Gemmy.
It went OK, until the principal of the regional symphony played with our group in summer band. (Her tone was/is so lovely that you almost want to cry when you hear her play.) I asked if she were available for lessons, and the very first thing she told me was that I was blowing improperly into the headjoint.
I had recently decided to upgrade to a solid silver flute, not knowing any better that how the flute is made (scale, engineering, cut of headjoint) was more important than silver content. So once my lessons started in earnest, I was playing a Yamaha flute, and working hard on getting a nice tone.
I then went on a trip, and took my Gemeinhardt flute with me on the airplane, not wanting to leave my new expensive flute in a hotel room. Yikes. Blowing properly (for stability of pitch) into the Gemmie headjoint made the tone icky. Making the tone sound good involved putting pitch, for C# especially, waayyyy outta whack.
Long story short, the Gemmies have a poor headjoint design and a lousy scale. Even the expensive 'pro' Gemeinhardts have these problems, except for the very occasional flute that didn't get its headjoint cut to specs and came out good.
I sold the Gemmie and bought a Pearl student flute for a backup instrument, it's a really nice instrument especially with its student headjoint swapped out for one of my handmade ones.
Read this post:
http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?132456-Thinking-of-buying-a-flute
For the price, go get yourself a Yamaha 200-series student flute and put a Yamaha EC headjoint in it, you will have a flute that you won't outgrow for years and years, without spending more than $1000. If you are really into solid silver (its shiny!), open holes (which you are unlikely to need if you are playing traditional flute music in church, band or symphony) and a B-footjoint (again, not really needed for most fluting) then you can get a nice Yamaha 400-series flute, and put a handmade EC headjoint in it. (The machine-made CY headjoint in 200, 300, and 400 flutes plays pretty much the same, silverplate or solid silver. It's a nice headjoint, and would probably serve you just fine for years, but the EC is actually a step-up for most folks.)
