Impedance comparison of high-quality alto and soprano saxophones
Vincent Gibiat, Jerome Selmer · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2002
Measuring the input impedance of high-quality wind instruments requires both a system able to provide the physical quantity in less than a few seconds and the possibility to do the measurement on a wide number of instruments. If we have such a system measuring system giving us the possibility to obtain impedance curves for the whole musical range of the instrument the second condition cannot be achieved without the strong collaboration of an instrument maker. The present study has been realized on Selmer saxophones and on instrmuents from two other factories. They include vintage instruments (as Mark VI) and the most recent commercialized ones. It allows one to study the evolution of the instruments. We will show that some alto saxophone models have reached an incredible harmonicity of their resonances while less common models present other characteristics. We will discuss these results and their relations with the audible quality of the instruments.