One more thing I forgot to add, sometimes a mouthpiece can be a contributor. I have a few mouthpieces and I find that certain mouthpieces work better with different saxes. The mouthpiece that gives me intonation challenges on my Grassi works well on my Mac and vice versa. I don't know why this is so. Fortunatly, they also give me better tone on those saxes, because I would sacrifice challenging intonation for better tone.

Even if you do end up getting a new sax, be sure to have it evaluated by a good sax tech.

When I bought my Selmer Mark VI, Selmer Mark VII, and Grassi Prestige I tried three of each out with a tuner and picked the best of the three. In the case of the VII, the three had very close serial numbers. On my other sax purchases I didn't have that luxury.

My new MacSax has relatively good intonation (better than the others I've owned). I got it via internet order and it was the first sax I didn't try before I bought. However, I got a no questions asked return policy on the horn.

My first school rental sax was an old Conn (fireworks on the bell) which was not nearly the sax that Conn used to sell. It was flimsy, light, thin, and as a kid, I didn't know if the intonation was on or not. After it seemed that I was a natural, my parents took the money they had saved from all my previous cash Christmas/Birthday presents and I bought a used Selmer Modele 26 sax. That was a pretty nice horn. Not too long after that I got the brand new Mark VI which had excellent tone but like all saxes of that day, had intonation challenges. I did end up getting first sax in the all-state band each year that I was eligible. The section leader usually goes to an alto player by default, but it was given to this tenor player, so the working with the strobe-o-conn and the instructions from my band directors paid off.

When you get the rental horn home, note the brand, model number, and serial number. There are a lot of people on the sax on the web forum who know a great deal more than me about saxes and know the strengths and weaknesses of individual models and the serial number runs.

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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