I am buying a new sax. Any advice on these five models?

[Colin Paralusz]

I have narrowed it down to five tenor saxophones.

> I have been playing the flute for many years and started the tenor saxophone in 2019. I have a modified 2007 Jean Baptiste or Taiwanese model that I played new from 2019 to 2024 until the mother-of-pearl keys started to fall off.  I added Oleg palm keys, a few new pads along the way, and a copper neck, and went through three mouthpieces (a generic student model, an Otto Link 8 rubber mouthpiece, and a metal Otto Link 8 mouthpiece). I consider myself an enthusiast who still has a way to go.  I am no Michael Brecker.  I am ready to buy a new tenor saxophone at Long and McQuade in May.  I tried out the following tenor saxophones with the fifth being tried out this week:
>
> 1) Yamaha Professional Tenor: YTS62III at $ 4,789.99
> 2) Yamaha Intermediate Tenor: YTS480 at $3,959.99
> 3) P Mauriat, Le Bravo Tenor Sax at $3,725.00
> 4) Conn-Selmer STS411, Copper Finish at $4,050.00
5) Henri Selmer Paris 54 Axos Tenor Saxophone at $5,699.00
>
> Believe it or not, I liked the Yamaha Intermediate or YTS480, but it is made in Indonesia. Yamaha though has quality control. (I loved my Japanese Muramatsu flute for its quality.)
>
> Now, I want to try my fifth one. I am trying the Henri Selmer Paris 54 Axos Tenor Saxophone. from Conn-Selmer Inc.  Its body is Selmer, but the parts are outsourced, and all are reassembled with leather pads.  Do you recommend this model?  You speak highly of Selmer on your site.  Players my age tend to have Sellmers, but Yamahas and Yanisagawas are getting more popular. My price bracket is between $4000 and $6000 Canadian.  The Henri Selmer Paris 54 Axos is the top end of my price point.  I can’t go higher. With tax in Ontario at 13%, the Conn-Selmer goes for $ 5,699 and with tax it comes out at ($ 5,699 + $741= $6 440). At the end of the day, it is the player. Skill sets, mouthpiece, neck, and horn usually go in that order. I am glad that I learned on my Taiwanese model, but repadding it would exceed its value. It is time to move on.

[Leo Salu]

Hello Colin, I play a yamaha yts 62 early model, heard great things about the yts62III, but that price seems rather high have you tried the saxophone site “reverb” here is a link they have the yts62II for $3999 not a bad savings with free shipping i bought my yts23 from them and it was great In any case i like Yamaha’s my latest video on this site is using the 62 good luck with your purchase.

https://reverb.com/p/yamaha-yts-62iii-professional-tenor-saxophone

[sxpoet]

i play a yamaha alto 480, and i was going to upgrade to a alto 62, and my local sax shop seller who sells saxophones (who also plays saxophones, clarinets), advised me against buying the 62. Two reasons the 480 is lighter and the key work on the 480 is a lot easier, sound wise there is no difference – so i would guess the same thing applies to the Tenor models.

As a shop seller he advised me to get a Yani Sax – why, the sound is far better than the yamaha, and as a shop owner who has sold a lot of different brands of new sax’s, the Yani’s are the only sax that work straight out of the box with the fewest adjustments having to be made in the shop before putting them up for sale.

You may not believe it but when a sax is transported from the manufacturer to a shop, by the time it gets to the shop, the jolting about of the sax its case can put any moving parts of the sax out of alignment, and every sax has to be tested before putting on sale.

i asked about the cheap outsourced axos selmer sax’s, the yani outclasses the yamaha 62 and the cheapest axos Selmer. His advice was if you are going to buy a selmer then buy a proper selmer and not the low end axos.

i recently decided to buy a Tenor and tried out the 480 and 62 in his shop – they sounded awful and put me off buying a tenor, could have been the cheap mouthpiece used on both tenors.

[Leo Salu]

Colin you might want to check out all the horns you are looking at on you tube, they have reviews on just about every saxophone ever made, here is one on the Yamaha yts62III

One thing I like about my 62 is how just about every note is in tune i usually check the tuning prior to playing and my 62 is always in the green, where as most of
my other 7 saxs are all over the place.

[sxpoet]

That’s exactly the point my local sax shop owner made – when a brand new sax comes into his shop from any manufacturer it goes straight to their repair shop – as all the tuning on new sax’s are all over the place, they have to retune them – and what he noticed was that the yani’s were the only sax’s that worked straight out the box and hardly ever needed adjusting. They do the same job on second hand saxes before reselling them.

At the end of the day, you need to try out the sax’s with your own mouthpiece setup and avoid using the cheap shop mouthpiece.

[Leo Salu]

Wish your shop owner was a little closer, sounds like a good shop to buy from..

[sxpoet]

The guy who runs the shop used to play professionally in an orchestra, he has a lot of knowledge being still in contact with other orchestra players in terms of instruments, set ups, feed back from other players about instruments and set ups etc.. what type of reeds are most popular. Then theres the repair side of wind instruments, the easy ones to repair etc.. Then theres the sales side – popular instruments that are always sold out, and hard to get hold of new instruments from manufacturers, ex i was enquiring about a new yani equivalent of a yamaha 62 – not available until october. Then theres the instruments he wont sell as no one wants to buy them.

These are first hand facts from passed on from professional players, in some cases they are personal preferences which you have to take into account. For someone like me who has no contact with other musicians, i tend to get advice from him, which i find more reliable than the internet.

[Pete]

Colin out of the ones you have listed i would go for Yamaha 62, the Mauriat does have a nice sound but for build quality its the Yamaha imo.

[Jeff]

I wold never describe a Yamaha Sax as fragile. Clearly this chap in the video is sponsored by some another manufacturer. If the Tenor 62 is anything like my Alto 62 it is a very solid build. Even my YAS-26 is very well made and it doesn’t even feature on most rankings. My YAS-62 has more powerful springs, requires more air, but the tone is really beautiful especially in the lower range. It feels rugged to play and the keys are in comfortable positions. I practice during the week on the 62, play the 26 on weekends, and you immediately notice the difference in quality and tone, but the 26 is still miles better than most other intro brands. A few people have asked to buy my 26 from me, but its not for sale.

[sxpoet]

if somethings fragile i imagine you would have to wear gloves to prevent it from being broken. lol

i have to be more careful with my clarinet than my saxophone, my sax has lots of metal grills to protect all the lower pads from accidental knocks, my clarinet on the other hand has no grills to protect any of the pads. A slight accidental tap on any of the clarinet pads would make it unplayable.

I accidentally dropped my sax three feet from the ground when the hook broke – it bent the lip of the bell, all the lower pads were bent, some lower rails were bent, it stopped working. The sax repair guy will tell you, lock your sax in it’s case, and drop the case, throw it around the room, roll it over on the floor – name any model of sax, and you can guarantee somethings going be slightly off.

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