I am a big fan of the Clarke Original. I am simply wondering how they compare with the other well known conical bore whistle, the Shaw ?
Any comments or comparisons welcome.
I’ve played shaws in low A, G & D, but to tell the truth none of those felt at all similar to clarkes in soprano D & C, which are still close to my fave high whistles.
I had a Shaw high E. Not a bad whistle, but it needed a lot of air pressure and then sounded rather breathy. Although the design looks similar to the Clarke Original (which I love), the sound and feel were totally different. My home-made E had more power for less pressure, and sounded cleaner, so the Shaw (at £13.75 my most expensive whistle) never got played and was eventually culled.
Hi
I can’t make a comparison on these two whistles because I’ve not got a
Clarke Original but I can comment on the Shaw D as I now have two.
My first whistle was a Shaw D, it was awful and was soon replaced with a Dixon Trad(much better)
Then about a month or so ago I was offered another for 10 quid,gave it a play and was pleasantly suprised.
Straight away I thought this is nice 
It still has that breathy tone to it but was so much easier to play with a little back preasure.Its quite loud
for such a narrow bore whisle but the breathyness (is that a word 
) takes the edge off.
The new one now gets played most days and I’m really getting to like it. I think mainly because it sounds
just a bit different to your standard brass tubed whistle.
BTW the other D is still awful as much as I want it to play nicely because it was my first 
Just my thoughts.
I’ve played both, but granted, it was more than a decade ago.
These were my impressions back then:
Clarkes: breathy, take a lot of air, hard to hit the second octave (oh how I chuckle at that now!)
Shaws: Clarkes on steroids: More breathy, take more air, take more push.
Funny thing, i bought the shaw looking for an “easier” whistle to play…what an eye-opener! That’s really what got me on my quest to find a really good whistle that suited what I wanted, and what led to my early-onset WhOA. I seem to be better, more or less, these days. I only occasionally fall off the wagon.