I’ve been thinking about trying my luck with a low D, but I don’t have a lot of money to throw at it. I know that I can’t expect too much when choosing primarily on price, but that’s where I’m at. So I’m wondering two things:
Are the sub-$100 low D’s worth playing? So far these I know include Susatso, Dixon, and Metcalf (Ethnic Wind).
Does anybody know a cheaper low D than this Dixon Plastic One-Piece at $77?
Thanks! 
Check out Guido Gonzato’s offerings at www.ggwhistles.com including instructions on how to make your own.
Best wishes.
Steve
I got lucky enough to pick up one of the last Kerry original low D’s as he was clearing them out to make way for the optima. I paid about $56 for it and have been very pleased with it. That’s not an option any more but keep an eye out for deals like that.
Daniel Bingamon offers an entry low D for under $30 While I have no experience with the “Practice Whistle” Daniel is a contributor here and he knows what he is doing. He also offers an aluminum model for $80. http://www.bingamon.com/jubilee/pagesmith/19 I am sure someone else around here has tried on of these.
There are a handful of other low D whistles for $75 or less (eBay is full of them) but I would not recommend any of them at this point.
I can unreservedly recommend either the Susato or the Dixon low D’s. I’ve owned a gaggle of Susatos (low D among them) and a couple dozen Dixons at this point (including three low D’s if I recall correctly).
The Susato can be a love/hate instrument. The beak is rather large and the BH2 hole could swallow a Fiat 500. It can be an ordeal on the hands as a first low D. And it takes a fair amount of air to make it dance. But it sounds great and is well tuned and durable.
The Dixon has a more modest volume. But the stretch is good for a beginner. The air requirements are moderate too. It is one of the low D’s I frequently would recommend as a first low D. I would recommend the tunable model though. But I have had one piece Dixons and the tuning was fine. You’d only have an issue if you intend to play with others.
Hope that helps.
Feadoggie
Wow, you folks are prompt!
Thanks for all the great input and suggestions. I’ll definitely look it all over. This is making me feel much better about getting something decent in my price range!
The recently new Dixon TB012D is an excellent whistle, less than $100, and holds it’s own against the big guys.
I’d like to second all 4 of the above comments. I have a Dixon and like it just fine.
One particular reason I’d nominate it for a first low D is: it’s extremely light weight. That really makes a difference when practicing every day.
I have a Susato Low D that I purchased new a couple months ago, and it’s honestly not getting that much playing time in, amongst all my other recent acquisitions. If you’re in the US, I’d be willing to part with it for $75 + shipping.
At your budget level, I’d agree with Steve and have Guido Gonzato make one for you. It won’t look like much since he uses PVC plumbing pipe but it will be in tune and play well. You won’t have any issue with playing Guido’s whistles and they sound better than some others costing three to four times as much.
Can’t speak to Susato as I’ve never owned one but Feadoggie knows what he’s talking about for sure.
ecohawk
I can concur with the above comments. Especially about the Dixons, I have two, the older DX003 and the new TB003D, both are non-tunable. I also have a Susato Kildare which is tunable.
The DX003 take quite a lot of air and volumn is medium to low. The tone however is good and transfers from the lower to upper octve smoothly. The tone holes are not too far apart for those with fingers that are not too short. Nice whistle for slow airs and laments The TB003D take less air and has more volumn; medium. The tone is somewhat reedy in the lower 3 notes, D, E, F#. Transfers from lower to upper octave reasonably smoothly and being tapered the tone holes have an easier reach. Compared to the DX003 this whistle is very light and could be easily sqashed.
I would certainly recommend the DX003 as a beginner’s whistle, unfortunately they are no longer made. They do however come up on Ebay quite regularly.
The Susato is quite a different kettle of fish. As mentionted above the mouthpiece is large as is the F# tone hole. Finger spacing is not as friendly as the Dixons. The tone is hard to describe (I would say somewhat strident) volumn medium, certainly louder than the Dixon TB003D. Transfers from lower to upper octave take some practice. It is whistle that you either love or perhaps (this is only my opinion, ‘get used to’). For the cost I would say it is a fair instrument.
Unable to comment on Guido’s whistles, but there have been lots of good reveiws as there have been on the Kerry.
What ever you decide to get I sure you will get hooked.
Ian.
P.S.Received my Garvie Low D in Cocobola last Saturday (Christmas and Birthday pressie) and I am gently playing it in. Will post a review when my playing skills improve and I figger how to post pictures.
James Becker also offers PVC whistles, including a low D: http://www.becker.embarqspace.com/#/irish-penny-whistles/4526996956
I considered either one of Dan Bingamon’s or one of his, but in the end I may end up going with a Dixon tapered-bore; I’m not sure if I could handle the reach of a PVC straight-bore whistle or not (I once picked up a bamboo low-D flute at a local flute store and I wasn’t even close).
Keep us posted on what you go with!
Hi Tricky Widget
Like a few others here I think the Dixon TB012 is the best bang for your buck.
Dixon TB012 low D - this one here may be within your budget.
David
I would like to chip in, hoping Tricky_Widget won’t mind me asking a question that is bugging me.
Why we can find dozens, if not more, of high whistles that cost less than 10-15 Euros and when is time to go low, prices just go up high (although, admittedly and to the extent of my knowledge, not so high as some high-end high whistles)?
Shouldn’t the low-end spectrum of low whistles be in line with the high whistles’ low-end spectrum?
The design is pretty much the same, sure there’s more material but costs-wise is hardly a 10-20 percent more (unless we talk about precious materials, but they wouldn’t be low-end) and, in a way, working on a bigger thing should be easier (it was for me when I made mine) so labor should cost less.
Well, it is slightly harder to get them tuned well, but I believe the average “ten times more” cost is highly unjustified, as would simply “twice as much as the high one” be exaggerated either.
Why there is no low-end low whistle market, low-end as in a Waltons’ or Generation’s brass D, not as in Dixon polymer’s Low D.
Speaking of which, the Dixon polymer low D costs on Tony’s site exactly 50£, the polymer high D is 12,55£.
I only own the high and love it and I’m sure I’ll get the low sometime soon, but, really, 37.45£ more?
Am I missing something?
Thanks for the attention.
Nope. The tooling to make a large whistle is considerably more expensive, just talking from my own lathe buying experiences. Of course much of that depends on the type and the design of the whistle. But the lathe I use to make my high D’s cost just over $350 in 1990’s money. The lathe I bought to facilitate low D whistles cost about five times as much. Then there’s the additional tooling to fit the larger lathe on top of that, like chucks, collets, tool posts and other bits. YMMV.
That logic probably doesn’t fly for making something like the Dixon though. I’ve made similar designs using a heat gun and a whittled down broom stick as a mandrel to shape the head and socket.
So maybe it is the market risk. You can sell ten or more high D’s to every one low D in my experience.
Feadoggie
Mor, I recently had pretty much the same question, too (concerning alto whistles though)
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/anyone-tried-a-dixon-trad-alto/84742/5
I don’t get it either. Nevermind the low whistles, play the flute!
Edit:
Okay, agreed.
Nevermind the low whistles, play the flute!
And what does a flute cost?
Depends. Technically you can go with the best of both worlds and get both heads for your Dixon. A Tipple low D with all the options shouldn’t cost any more than $150 or so if figured quickly in my head?
Ok, this is true, but this should affect more the price of high-end, usually hand-crafted, pieces.
My question begged to know why there is no -say- Generation Low D whistle, with a slightly longer and larger and irrelevantly more expensive (for a factory made product) brass tube and a plastic molded mouthpiece with pretty much the same design of the high whistles. All for something in the range of 15-20 Euros max (considering that a cheap high D can cost less than a bad slice of pizza).
Now, of course a maker of handcrafted whistles has to deal with the higher costs you described, but I was really thinking of production lines of cheap low whistles.
If you where to hand-make a Clarke Sweetone or Meg whistle, it certainly wouldn’t cost 6-8 Euros.
But how much would something like the aforementioned hypothetical Generation low D cost?
I dare say it wouldn’t be in the three figures price almost all lows are.
I’m convincing myself you got it right when you mentioned the market:
Probably if Generation or Clarke or Waltons or Feadog, Oak etc. had larger selling prospects for low whistles, we would have cheap lows as well as highs.
Indeed we can see how diverting from the key of D the price raises even in high whistles where labor and tools are pretty much the same, so it must really just be a market risk factor. 
Thank you for your insightful input Feadoggie
@megapop
I have just recently crafted a flute right from Doug Tipple’s guide and although I believe it wasn’t that bad (well, certainly a flute player would bash me with it but still), I struggle to hold it and consistently hit the notes.
With the whistle I have the support of the lips to hold the pipe while playing the top notes, with the flute I simply struggle.
I am willing to work on it though, so we’ll see.
Different instruments. I think you can play both. But, for me, flute is now easier than low whistle. And I would use low whistle for different things. For instance, I’m not great at the faster stuff, in particualr, on low whistle, so flute or igh D is better for me for that. But airs and slower stuff are nice on low whistle, and make a radically different effect from that produced on flute.
I think there may still be reasons that such a low D might be more expensive. So let’s think about a Generation type low D a bit.
Take the size of the mouthpiece in a molded low D whistle. It will be four or five times the size of the mouthpiece on a high D. Think about the mold that makes the whistles. The molding machines may have size limits depending of course on the technology the maker uses. Let’s say his molding machines have a blank mold size of 8 x 8 inches. And that in order to cnc a set of molds for a high D with all the proper duct work for injecting plastic that they can get four heads out of a single shot in that 8 x 8 area. Now lets think about that low D mouthpiece. Maybe they can only get one mouthpiece per shot. Or maybe the dimensions of a low D mouthpiece exceed the max size their injection molding machines can support. Big costs there. But we don’t know for sure.
Have you looked into the cost of developing a new whistle head mold lately? (The prototype heads on the MakerBot haven’t turn out so well! Still working on that.) The accounting department would sure want to set the price high to make up that investment.
Then the tubing. You are going from 1/2" tubing for a high D to say 3/4" tubing or greater for the low D. You have to source and store the larger tubes. Let’s assume that you have racks for the tubes that store a six foot length of tube. You may be able to get six high D’s from a 6 foot length of 1/2" tubing. You will get maybe three from a six foot length of 3/4" tube. So you would need twice as much tube to make the same number of low D’s compared to the high D’s. And with the added weight and volume of the larger tubes it would take up considerably more space to store. New warehouses? Shipping costs would be higher too. Bigger truck? And what if the current operation used a chop saw that maxes out at 5/8" cutting capacity to cut the tubes to length? Then you have to buy new chop saws. You would think that drilling holes only requires a new set of larger drill bits to poke hole in the larger tubes. Right? Maybe not. Maybe the current operation uses a multi-hole boring machine with a maximum span of 12", good enough for your Bb whisltes. Now you have a pipe 2 foot long that needs holes 16" across. And the chucks in the current machine take up to 3/8" bits and you have a BH2 hole on the low D that needs a 1/2" hole. Oh well, new boring machine? And besides you make so many high D’s that periodically changing the boring dimensions for low D’s would result in quality control errors in the operation so you have to opt for new boring machines anyway. Big bucks. I guess they could move up to cnc boring/milling operations to do the low D’s. You’ll need two - minimum of $50,000 each. Oh, and new operators too.
And you know that even though many folks buy high D’s that the size and finger stretch of a low D will limit your sales of that new model. Not to mention the fact that a lot of players can’t keep up with the breath requirements of your Bb so they are not going to buy a low D - gasp, gasp. Lower sales still. How’s that low D cost analysis spreadsheet coming?
No matter how I look at it, a low D is going to be more expensive than a high D by some significant factor.
I would however agree that much of the cost of many low D’s is driven by market pricing factors. It’s not been the case for long time that a maker of goods sells his product for what it costs to make plus a little more to cover overhead. It has long been a matter of “what the market will bear”. Price competitiveness these days has more to do with selling goods at a price equal to that of your competition than it is undercutting their prices. (Well ok, there are governments that are willing to do that bit in order to re-order the world economy in their favor.)
Maybe a $25 low D is possible. Maybe it could play ok too. We can hope.
Feadoggie