Re: [Harp-L] Re: Defective harps

[Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hope Hohner's not going backwards in quality. Especially what Richard said
about the gapping, is disturbing.

I haven't been buying harps recently except for a recent spurt of
purchases. I bought some Hering customs on Ebay (still more left last time
I looked) and was pleasantly rewarded. The Golden Blow ($74.95) was nicely
setup and only needed a little tweeking, and the Blues Custom ($54.50) had
good response OOTB. Certainly not like what you would get from one of the
professional customizers, but a good starting point for those who don't
mind doing further kitchen surgery on a harp.

I also bought out a Yonberg D2 ($74-96). Really nice harp with good setup
out of the box and a slickly ergonomic shape. I haven't torn it apart yet,
but I don't expect to do a lot of tweeking. The only bother I've noticed is
the cover plate material isn't as slick as the usual metal covers. I feel a
slight resistance when navigating up and down the harp.

There is no financial connection between me and the vendors involved. I
just thought I'd pass on a quick completely personal review of these for
those of us who want to try all the harmonicas there are.

Eric

On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 12:26 PM, Mike Wilbur <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> Weird...to bad Q Control is slipping.
>
> Mike Wilbur
> Chaser Key West
> 305-296-7201
>
> > On Apr 25, 2015, at 11:55 AM, Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> >
> > I recently bought a Hohner Rocket in the key of Ab; I needed that key at
> the exact time that the Rocket in Ab went on sale.  The harp was very leaky
> on arrival and would not overblow.  Removing the cover plates, I saw that
> gapping was very high, much higher than I'm used to lately in production
> harps.  I lowered the gaps and that made the harp more responsive.
> However, I also noted that the draw 3 reed had been deeply slashed near its
> base, apparently in order to tune it.  The slash carried over to the reed
> plate, and it was deep enough that I had to clean metal burrs off the edge
> of the reed in order to gap it lower without having it hang up on the side
> of the slot.
> >
> > Not great quality, in my opinion.  Interesting to hear others tell
> similar stories, many of which are about problems with the draw 3 reed.
> >
> > I just ordered a nearly full set of Manjis.  I've played a lot of
> different harps over the last couple of years, including Hohner MB Deluxes
> and Crossovers, Lee Oskars, Special 20s, Seydel Session Steels and 1847s,
> and Manjis--I probably missed one or two.  I'm about to do a loud rock gig,
> and in the rehearsals the Manjis are giving me the kind of performance I
> need for that gig--they respond to hard playing pretty well.
> >
> > Regards, Richard Hunter
>
>