RE: [Harp-L] Suzuki's Fabulus....Rant...

[Steve Shaw <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

 > > > But at the same time I do agree if I paid good money for a harp 
> > then it should come with out problems...
> > > Then again, when you buy a guitar they will test it for you and 
> > maybe tune it to make sure its good,,,, then the rest is up to you 
> > to maintain.....
> > > then again its me.
> > >
> > > abner (Blueyes, then again who knew)
> >
> >
> >There just can't be a stock harp that is going to suit just 
> >everyone. It isn't possible.
> 
> 
> Why not? I'm not saying everyone will like lets say sp 20's, MB's MB 
> Deluxes, etc, but once we find a harp we do like, why can't it be 
> manufactured the same way every time? Why do we settle for such poor 
> manufacturing from all the companies. We wouldn't if we were buying 
> anything else.

 

It isn't poor manufacturing, it's just that ~we~ are all different.   The harp companies are on a hiding to nothing here.  They are expected to churn out cheap harps by the thousand so that we can all afford to buy harps.  Clearly they have to have some compromises in matters of gapping and fine-tuning as it is impossible to please everybody.   On the whole I think they do a good job.  I've been playing for about 20 years and must have bought several hundred harps by now (wasted most of 'em in the early days by playing badly and blowing 'em out within weeks) from Hohner, Lee Oskar, Tombo, Suzuki, Hering and Huang.  In all that time and with all those harps I've never had a reed that didn't work out of the box.  Not one busted reed or a reed out of alignment.  May have needed gapping and even retuning, but they all worked and were easy enough to knock into shape.  OK, they may have needed a little work but they were cheapie-cheapie!   I made my CD with a £20 SP20 and a £20 Lee Oskar on both of which I spent no more than a half-hour getting them right. That included fine-tuning the SP20 to equal temperament.  The guy accompanying me was playing a guitar costing £1200, a mando costing over £600 and a fiddle/bow costing Gawd knows.  It's easy to complain, and I'm sorry if disabilities prevent some people from working on their own harps, but I think that out-of-the-box harps, ultra-cheapos aside, are the best value on the planet.

 

Steve 


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