Wessex Sinfonico - Reviewed with Pictures and Videos

[guidocorona]

Hello John, "remotivate" must be a perfectly good word because my spell checker has not objected to my typing it here

I am so looking forward to the result of your upcoming "remotivated" recording session on E3... And yes, doing the more lyrical pieces would be perfect! …. And, no pressure at all at all at all.... Really *Grins!*

BTW, who is coming up next on the Sinfonico travelling eval show?

Regards, Guido

[John Morgan]

Hello John, "remotivate" must be a perfectly good word because my spell checker has not objected to my typing it here

I am so looking forward to the result of your upcoming "remotivated" recording session on E3... And yes, doing the more lyrical pieces would be perfect! …. And, no pressure at all at all at all.... Really *Grins!*

BTW, who is coming up next on the Sinfonico travelling eval show?

Regards, Guido

Guido,

At the risk of prematurely revealing the identity of the next reviewer, I can only say that the three remaining reviewers have first name initials of D, D, and J (in alphabetical order). If you assign the letters an ordinal number, then take the cardinal reciprocal of each, multiply by the inverse of the day of the week it will be tomorrow, expressed as a number from the start of the current year plus half the square root of the number of beads in an abacus, then rotate the answer and pick the highest one, you will have the first initial of the first name of the next reviewer. If you are able to ascertain that, I can provide further instructions for more letters, but it gets complicated...

Hint: The initial is quite similar to my first name initial.

[DEF1]

Thank you for the review John and the great videos.

My Dolce also has the main tuning slide water valve the “wrong way” round to what I have previously been used to. Is your Dolce not like this?

Interesting that there is no lyre holder. I hadn’t noticed this when looking at photos.

Regarding sound. It does have a nice sound but having listened to your recordings on my TV surround speakers I’m still finding the Dolce has the nicer sound. Perhaps it’s just because you were slightly further away from the mic when playing the Dolce?

Interesting to see some of the comments regarding Chinese instruments and their longevity. I remember when people used to say the same about Japanese instruments. Funny how things change.

Thanks again and I’m looking forward to the other 3 reviews.

[hyperbolica]

It seems on good horns that there are certain notes that just resonate and "sound particularly good". I notice several of these notes in the lower part of the Bb scale, with the bottom note being the concert Bb in the staff. On notes you refer to above the staff, I guess I really didn't notice too much difference in the character/timbre of the notes. That could have been me changing dynamics or the CamCorder not picking up my dynamics (or overpicking them up). Not sure, but wasn't aware of a change in timbre. Sometimes notes can just resonate and sound different/off depending on the acoustics of the room you are recording in.

The longer I played the Sinfonico, the more I got settled in with it. I played it surely more than 10 hours. And each time I re-played a piece that I had just played a little earlier, it seemed to settle in and sound better. That was me getting used to the horn and trying to make it sound as good as I could.

I'm a trombone player, so I'm used to the timbre changing a little with each partial. I'm still getting used to some of the finer points of euph playing, and the timbre can change with partials and with valve circuits. Alternate fingerings and alternate positions are not always used for the same reasons, which also gets a little confusing when you're trying to learn how to play a valve instrument with no pitch adjustment in tune.

I have owned the Dolce, and currently use a Festivo. The Sinfonico really sounds great in a real player's hands. I think the 11" bell really helps lend some clarity to both the Festivo and the Sinfonico.Thanks so much for the recordings. Also looking forward to hearing your Adams recordings, especially as I'll probably never get the opportunity Eager to hear the rest as well.

[John Morgan]

Thank you for the review John and the great videos.

My Dolce also has the main tuning slide water valve the “wrong way” round to what I have previously been used to. Is your Dolce not like this?

Interesting that there is no lyre holder. I hadn’t noticed this when looking at photos.

Regarding sound. It does have a nice sound but having listened to your recordings on my TV surround speakers I’m still finding the Dolce has the nicer sound. Perhaps it’s just because you were slightly further away from the mic when playing the Dolce?

Interesting to see some of the comments regarding Chinese instruments and their longevity. I remember when people used to say the same about Japanese instruments. Funny how things change.

Thanks again and I’m looking forward to the other 3 reviews.

I just checked my Dolce and the main tuning slide water key points in the opposite direction (what I am used to) of the 1st and 3rd water keys. But I bought that Dolce over 5 years ago. The piece where I am playing the Dolce (Morceau Symphonique) was indeed recorded a bit further away from the mic, AND I recorded that piece several times to try to get the very best sound and performance that I could. The pieces I recorded on the Sinfonico were basically just done in one sitting (standing I guess is the better word as I was standing!) and one take only. I tried to play my best, but they are the result of just one pass. And when I put the pieces together to get rid of the first and last part of each snippet, that worked pretty well until I deleted the last phrase of Danny Boy. But I had all my stuff put away by then, so I just left it as is.

[EvanWeeks]

Thanks, Rick! You are correct on the intonation. Once I had the main tuning slide where I wanted it, the horn played very well in tune. I checked it frequently with the tuner, especially when playing slower pieces. I elected not to do an in depth review of the tuning, as a couple of the other reviewers will probably elect to do that.

This confirms my suspicion that my intonation issues with the Sinfonico were less the instrument and more my weak embouchure recovering from a decade and a half of atrophy. Doing an hour a day of highly structured practice most days, and it's helping. Lots of long tones, lots of scales, transcribed a bunch of stuff for me to play along with, too, including "Feed The Birds" from Mary Poppins, which is my favorite.

[Shawn]

This confirms my suspicion that my intonation issues with the Sinfonico were less the instrument and more my weak embouchure recovering from a decade and a half of atrophy. Doing an hour a day of highly structured practice most days, and it's helping. Lots of long tones, lots of scales, transcribed a bunch of stuff for me to play along with, too, including "Feed The Birds" from Mary Poppins, which is my favorite.

I remain unconvinced.
Of course the one making the rounds to our resident expert players was optimised before it was shipped out. It's like when they let magazines test drive a car: they give them the absolute best tuned-up copy.
The sample shipped to me this time last year was hopeless. And that's a pity, because it was a horn I desperately wanted to replace my Willson 2975.

If we were the only ones, I'd be more likely to agree with you.
Buyer beware.

[davewerden]

Of course the one making the rounds to our resident expert players was optimized before it was shipped out. It's like when they let magazines test drive a car: they give them the absolute best tuned-up copy.

Um, probably not. In my experience they A) don't have enough samples of a popular horn to have much choice about what to send (I know that is the case here), and B) there really isn't much a distributor can do to improve intonation.

[guidocorona]

Hmmm.... if Sinfonico's has improved intonation since Sean's experience, the simplest and most likely explanation is that.... Wessex has addressed Sinfonico's intonation in the latest production runs.

Buyer Beware... Of conspiracy theories, that is *Grins!*

Regards, G.

[highpitch]

Indeed. There is enough "Q-Anon"-like stuff about euphoniums anyway.

Dennis

[spkissane]

Is that Q41-anon or Q40-anon???

[highpitch]

Ha!

DG

[guidocorona]

Has been a bit since John Morgan's review..... Is Sinfonico still on its way to the next fortunate reviewer?

Saluti, G.

[davewerden]

Has been a bit since John Morgan's review..... Is Sinfonico still on its way to the next fortunate reviewer?

Saluti, G.

The next reviewed has requested a slight logistical delay, but I think that is about expired now. Things should start to happen again soon!