Re: [Harp-L] The reed issue

[Zombor Kovacs <zrkovacs@xxxxxxxxx>]

I don't have much experience with Hohner, but others
will tell us about their experience. 
How much has Hohner invested in investigating reed
fatigue? As it is known copper does not have a fatigue
limit. It will fail after a number of cycles anyway.
Below the fatique limit steel and titanium alloys will
theoretically not fail after an infinite number of
cycles. Certainly a harp which never fails is no
business for Hohner (nor for others), no matter at
what price it is sold.


--- Fernando Bresslau <fernando@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> The balance that we try to keep at Hohner is between
> tone and
> durability. We want to have both, good tone and long
> life expectancy.
> From our experience, you don't get both at the same
> time.
> A harmonica with short life expectancy gives the
> opportunity to the
> customer to change brands, and we don't want that.
> In any case, nobody at Hohner believes that
> harmonicas which go south
> faster will increase sales.
> We have assembled and I have played harmonicas with
> SS reeds. They
> sound just fine and play well. But the manufacturing
> process is much
> more complicated and we don't have reasons to
> believe that reeds will
> last much longer. The Harmonetta had SS reeds and
> had issues with
> durability.
> But Hohner continuosly tries new materials out, and
> we are already
> clearly at a better performance/tone point than we
> were in the 80s or
> even the 90s.
> Other manufacturers are making interesting
> experiences. We are curious
> to see what results they get, and are open to new
> ideas.
> 
> Cheers,
> Fernando
> 



 
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