In my experience, cannonballs have not been able to measure up to selmer, yamaha, or keilwerth in quality of horn. However, they are still not a bad horn and one thing they have over the other brands is growth and improvement. The people at cannonball are always trying to make a better horn and they will take player's suggestions and aren't afraid to tweak aspects and dimmensions to see if the result is something better. The other brands, especially selmer, definitely do not do this, as they have the approach of, "it sells, so why would we want to change anything?"
Nov 20, 2009 Rating
Why buy a Cannonball ? by: Sean
Ok, I'm a Selmer player and have owned a few other brands as well, including a Cannonball tenor. I know not everyone can afford a Selmer, but if you are going to pay $2600.00 on a Cannonball, you should just add a few more bucks and buy yourself a Yamaha. Cannonballs are great eye candy and are one of the better horns coming out of China. (Jupiter has got to be the best as far as price & quality).As a Selmer player I do recommend to my students to buy Yamaha or Jupiter if they don't have the funds for a Yamaha.The biggest problem I found with the Cannonball was that the upper register was weak, and the altissimo was out of tune. I know you Cannonball fans will disagree with me, but if you were to do blind test you will see and hear what I am saying.
Jun 11, 2010 Rating
Cannonball sax by: Anonymous
Those are great saxes...for jazz. It's a great horn and everything but since it has larger neck bores it causes tuning problems that you can't get away with in a concert setting. I say go for the Selmer or Yamaha if you're more into playing classical. Keilwerth-I don't know anything about these saxes.
