Re: [Harp-L] Re: Question about custom harmonicas

[David Payne <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve Baker wrote: 

John, your personal preferences are your affair, but this is to put it mildly an extremely contentious claim... few would justify their choice by claiming Hohner instruments are inherently inferior. How about trying a Hohner Classic harp out of current production before making such absolutist statements in public?

Steve


He never said in his post what he bought. Hopefully, in his follow-up post, he's proven he's purchased enough harmonicas recently enough to justify posting his personal opinion on an e-mail list.
If Hohner can reestablish its name in quality harmonicas, good for Hohner. But one can catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar.

John
To answer John's question, they aren't only customizing Hohners. 
There were a lot of guys leaving Hohner after the big slip in quality after KHS of Taiwan bought out Hohner in the late 1990s, as a result of all the restructuring was going on. The Tiawanese overlords turned the company around and Hohner turned its first real profit in about 20 years, after maybe four years of new ownership. But the result of that was a lot of guys were driven away from Hohner I, the biggest Hohner lover of all, was one.  That's more common among the younger guys, I think. The original customizers have decades of experience with Hohner being the only game in town and it's hard to go from one reedplate style to another. You spend all these years learning how to make one reed profile sing, it's hard to do with another. 
In recent years, my interest has shifted from Hohner to Seydel, but I still like fiddling with the occasional Marine Band, simply because it is familiar. It's like a guy driving a brand new car gets this feeling when he sees a car like the AMC Gremlin he drove when he was 16. 

There's a lot of guys who are customizing harmonicas besides Hohner, mostly Seydel and Suzuki, it seems. This is especially true among the younger customizers. 



________________________
Dave Payne Sr. 
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com