Has anybody had any experience of the Calmont low D as sold on Ebay?
Mark
I have been tempted to purchase one to see how it plays, but I don’t know if I could play it as the maker describes the whistle is played (No beak).
There are afew threads about the Calmont on here,if you do a search you should get them…from what I remember the comments about them were OK.
From what I remember, Calmont was a bit of a troll.
Dlae did a review on the main site.
I bought one of these on ebay, though the one I got was not directly from Calmont, but was sold second hand.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=10183&item=7326523294
If you compare this to the ones up for sale right now on ebay you may notice subtle differences. Mine is an earlier, practice model (this was one I think Keith bid on as well). I’ve communicated with the maker (he’s actully a very helpful guy) and he says the practice model doesn’t have the volume that the current model has and isn’t adjustable like the new one. I still like it, though I admit to wishing I’d got one of the new, non-practice models. It’s enjoyable to play and it doesn’t take long to get used to the mouthpiece. I’m relatively new to the whistle and picked it up pretty quickly. I’ve actually learned something about breath control with this.
The review by Dale in the Low Whistle section seems to me to be true to my experience. Here’s the Calmont website: http://hometown.aol.co.uk/calmontmusic/myhomepage/business.html
Hope this helps. I’d be glad to answer any questions here or by PM.
I bought one out of curiousity.
I was so disappointed with it, I sent it back,
because I paid by Paypal the refund was
immediate.
The whistle tone wasn’t bad,
but my (then) 4 year old Dixon low D was better.
(The tone was flutey, but Tipple and Dixon flutes are cheaper.)
The finish was appaling, and worse than the
Dixon that had been lent to people in sessions
meetings, borrowed etc over its lifetime.
As to the no beak thing, look at Asian whistles
and you’ll see bamboo versions that cost a lot less,
and sound just as good, have a look in the
‘ethnic’ shops - which is where I got my bamboo
version from for £10 last year (2004).
Save up a bit more and get a metal whistle.
e.g. Alba low whistles are about £80,
and will knock the pants off any Calmont.
Kerry low whistles = same,
and have a resale value that is a large percent of
their price when new if you don’t like them.
The extra cost of the metal whistles is more than justified,
unless Calmonts have improved quite dramatically over
the past couple of years.
HTH
Thanks for the responses guys!
Mark