I did not see prices either. Wald, where did you find that price?
Yahoo converter give a bit over $2400 US today.
Wouldn’t the very same people laugh at you if you turned up to a session with a cheap plastic flute or concertina? There’s something weird going on here.
Oops, page two! 
That is a very interesting observation, Wombat. I knew there was something about the high end thing that was bugging but just could not put my finger on it. I think that was it.
Jessie,
I’m no sax player, but my impression is that sax actually uses fingerings very close to Boehm flute fingerings.
I know from music history that the sax key mechanism is derived from the key mechanism of the Boehm flute.
–James
C is different and the Eb key is normally closed. C is oxo ooo. The accidentals vary a bit, there is lots more touches on a sax. LT is octave only, etc.
I don’t yet know about Boehm flute fingering; my first student model is in the mail as I write. What I can say is that saxophone fingering is a very natural extension of whistle fingering. Obviously you have to deal with accidentals but the appropriate keys are conveniently located for fluent fingering. But the basic fingering of most of a C major scale follows fairly closely the fingering of a D whistle, except taht F# on whistle sounds as F on saxophone. Right hand pinky deals with low C, B, Bb and Eb. Years of playing sax meant that I got whistle fingering immediately and knew exactly where I was straight away. The same would work in reverse.
Wow, Zub! That’s really cool.
Quote from the Strathmann website:
Question:
Which is the sound of the Strathmann-Alto flute?Answer:
The sound is between the German flute (Boehmflöte), the recorder and the pan-flute..
You’ve gotta post a sound clip once you get it up and running.
-Paul
The price is just under 2,000 Euros, so yes it would be around 2,400+ dollars.
It’s a lot of money, but certainly not overpriced considering the worksmanship. The wood has no ferrules. The tuning slide is wooden, but using three neoprene O rings instead of the traditional cork assembly.
All the hardware is nickel-silver, thick silver-plated. Some of the holes, notably the topmost octave vents are “chimney” metal inserts. The annular keys (“open” keys) go over wood chimneys laid overt the main tube.
The head is made of plastic, for mechanical reasons. The windway itself is lined with cedar (red cedar, I reckon) both in the head proper and the windway removable “lid” (attached by a sax ligature). There’s also a wood lid supplied, matching the whistle’s wood. Changing does alter the sound colour.
So does the adjustable windway (Strathmann’s patent too–well, there are three of his used on this alto alone): with the set screw fully in, the sound is quite breathy, very trad whistle like. Turning the screw out reduces air demand, increases back pressure, gets a reedy sound at the extreme.
Finally, there’s a very sensitive, chin-operated button, which opens a small vent inside the head, below the window. This allows to gradually raise the pitch, up to a quarter-tone. Do what you’ll fancy with it:
blow “piano” while staying in tune,
bend “jazz” tones,
play chromatic notes (i.e. make the G# higher than the Bb)
etc.
Mr Strathmann is a very nice person, and told me he always tries to keep two instruments in stock, one in rosewood and the other in afr. blackwood. I took rosewood and got it by mail a few days after I transfered the money. There was a nice hard case, velvet-lined, like those you usually see for Boehm flutes, with some joint grease and a clarinet-type swab (chamois piece with a weighted string).
Before buying, I had a long correspondence with a Danish jazzman called Hans Ulrik–see http://www.hansulrik.dk/
Jens (or any other in Denmark), did you ever hear him ?
He plays saxes (and bass clarinet) as well as two Strathmann flutes, the alto (F) and one soprano (C), which he has had for over ten years. He highly recommended the flutes, and I purchased a record from him (“Danish standards”), to hear the alto.
There’s a short clip of him on the soprano you can hear from his site here http://www.hansulrik.dk/listen_under.html (Flash 6 plug-in needed).
Now, we’re both working on getting Mr Strathmann to start working on a Tenor C or–why not?–bass in F. 
Zub, any chance once you get it broken in you can do a recording so we can hear what it sounds like?
You can buy a darned excellent alto recorder for less than that. Recorder fingerings are NOT all that hard to learn, plus there are no moving parts to wear out or break. Interesting instrument, but I’ll pass ( alathough I’d love to try it out if you’re ever passing through upstate NY…)
Of course, I still struggle with all these keys, having never played a sax.
What I can already tell you, is the sound has little to do with a recorder’s.
It’s much more of a whistle, including breathiness if wished.
The low F is kind of weak though (strongly conical bore as in recorders… or Copeland, Shaw, Clarke whistles), and takes a lot of air control to sound loud and not overblow.
Beside from this more difficult tone, all others are equally powerful and clear, and we’re talking a true fully balanced chromatic scale. That’s not recorder either.
It should also be noted that the saxophone approach has its comfort: aside from the thumb (vent) key, the fingering remains strictly identical between both lower octaves. The third requires special fingerings.
If you want more power from the second register, you can skip the thumb key and overblow just like on a whistle. Of course, the top notes (A, B in whistle convention) will get too loud then so you’d better start “venting” them.
now, will someone unload me from some whistles?
My goodness, Zub, I may need one of those.
I guessed you might, Jessie, but have patience for a year: the dollar will have to recover from its historic low against the Euro, when Mr President of the US of A gets elected.
And suddenly the figures will wall from $2,500 to $1,900…
Yeah, I’ll wait. I actually looked into this instrument a few years ago when the price was $1800 US and thought it was too much then. That was before I had ventured into the world of Boehm flutes.
Lotsa bossa, jazz, gone thru that tube already. G+A-minor Russian songs too.
Those funky nats-gone-sharps in “The man I love” a breeze. Now the care has to switch to breath control, not the half-holing skill…
Now I wish it was in C (to play in Eb). So my low whistles (C, D, Eb) still have a LOT of use.
So far, the Strathmann replaces, F, G, A whistles. Working on these Bb Breton tunes… and on getting what I know cleaned up: the keys are so sensitive, I actually sound some sax “duck-sounds” more than often.
Also those glissandi slurs so much easier (so far…) on a regular big-holed whistle! The above paragraph, though, implicates I should get them as well with a less “binary” control of the keys…