materials,sound

[fjm <2738540@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

If you went to the Dallas Spah this year and attended the banquet you
got a melon coloured harmonica made entirely of plastic with the
exception of the fasteners and the reed plates.  It's pretty dreadful
sounding, plays well enough but muffled and thin.  I'll assume the
plates are standard MS but then again looking at the bottom I notice
it's made in China.  So what is the sum total of details that makes this
plastic harmonica sound, plasticy?  Can we agree on something here,
different harmonicas sound different?  Besides amplitude would any of
the other sonic characteristics of this harmonica be measureable?  It
seems to me that the discussion regarding materials has always been
somewhat skewed to  theories advanced as explanations of tonal and
timbreal differences in harmonicas instead of actually observing the
differences and pursuing the explanations.  fjm