Yes, I agree completely.
I still stand by my original post even though the Potter whistle is brass. At the price of a Potter when the tarnish sets in too much I’d just buy another shiny brass Potter whistle. 
Another further thought as the OP has opened the thread to include “outdoor” factors, wind, heat from volcanic lava flow, sand, wet, etc., not many whistles no matter their cost will fit and play well in that environment.
Aloha!
Although it’s likely clear at this point, I indeed thought chiff was a word used to describe the breathy, airy, ‘complex’ tone some whistles have. While I know this could sound wonderful with the right whistle in the right context, my preference at this point is for a ‘cleaner’ sounding tone with as little extraneous noise as possible…
Initially, a lower price was a consideration for me, since I anticipated this whistle getting some abuse, but then I became curious which whistles you all have played that would fit that ‘pure’ tone profile, regardless of price.
Good to be specific though…
If cost isn’t in the equation… Oz Vambrace. Great tone. Great intonation. No chiff.
A close second would be a Burke. Any Burke.
In third… Susato Kildare. Both the small bore and the very small bore. Very clean tone. Excellent intonation. The small is loud. The very small bore is VERY comfortable.
Ymmv.
I’m pretty sure we’ve been arguing over chiff since the start of the board back in the 90’s.
I mostly use it to mean ‘start of note chiff’ when I use the term. Others mean ‘non-musical sound in a note’ (ie: breathiness or scratchiness). We’ve never had a consensus, and even if a small handful of people agreed at one particular point in time, that consensus will not hold as people come and go.
Always better to just clarify. 
Now, I’m even more confused.
So “chiff” is supposed to be both breathy and scratchy?
I know what traditional Generations sound like, and I know what Recorders sound like. I know that tweaking a Generation can remove some of the typical scratchiness, which might or might not be a good thing. To my ears a Killarney is more like an old Generation. Some wooden whistle are more towards recorder.
What is “breathiness”? Is it like the wind rushing or breath whooshing without a musical tone?
Some flute players push the air in a way that you hear the wind of their breath in addition to the note. Others shape the tone quality to emphasize a rough, raspy tone. Is breathy on a whistle where you can hear the rush of the wind?
What whistle style exemplifies “breathiness” but not scratchiness?
“When The Tarnish Sets In” would be an incredible song name with so many applications. Just thought I’d point that out to any treble clef artists or lyricists out there. Go for it! A line or two about getting too much “chiff” would work too. 
I’m enjoying this conversation! I was definitely under the impression that chiff meant breathiness and scatchiness in addition to the whistle’s underlying tone, however I totally respect that my terminology was flawed, as I only gleaned the term from reading other threads here and may have very well taken it out of context. Although I’ve never played a recorder or even heard one in person, I do understand that the tone is considered to be perhaps ‘purer’ with little or no extraneous ‘breathy’ sound, and this is indeed what I’m seeking in a whistle.
To be as clear as possible, I mean no disrespect to the other end of the spectrum (breathy, scratchy whistles), in my mind it all comes down to personal preference since each individual is spending many hours with their instruments and sounds definitely seem to affect people differently.
Any other recommendations for pure-sounding, perhaps recorder-like high whistles that are mostly metal (not mostly plastic) and hopefully not brass? Ha ha, no disrespect to brass either!
Yes.
I’d say, yes.
IMO “breathy” sounds nice, “scratchy” not so much, even though the underlying principle might be the same – a sound that accompanies the note. I think it is maybe similar to “distortion” on a guitar. There is the nice sounding version (best achieved by amps with vacuum tubes) and the nasty kind, often caused by other electronic parts or bad contacts. Like scratchy sounding earphones. I think what causes the impression of nice and not so nice are probably the frequencies either building some kind of harmonic overtone or a dissonant sound.
Edit: besides that I’d say a scratchy sound is often caused by some defect. A crack in the mouthpiece, plastic in the windway, etc. A breathy sound is mainly caused by the design of the blade and the length of the window. Longer window and/or longer blade (labium) causes generally a more breathy sound and harder to reach second octave. I managed to more or less exactly replicate the breathiness of a Generation Bb by copying the length and width of the window and the length of the windway.
Take a listen to my High D, a c1970 Feadog Mk1.
It’s the purest, sweetest, easiest-to-play High D I’ve ever played:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-fQhvleWq8&t=22s
That is, until I got a Killarney a few years ago, with nickel body, which is the tiniest bit easier/lighter in the high notes than that Feadog.
But the Feadog has a more complex sophisticated tone IMHO.
This is exactly the reason why I use “chiff” in the traditional sense. When used that way, everyone knows what you’re talking about. Technical terms should be a shortcut to a specific idea, so that you don’t have to explain the idea–you use the term instead.
When you expand its meaning to include all non-musical sounds of a whistle, the shortcut becomes irrelevant–you have to explain what you mean anyway or people don’t know exactly what you’re talking about. When I’m writing reviews, I tend to use chiff to mean the burst of harmonics at the start of a note, and then I’ll use other descriptive terms to describe the note itself: Hissy, windy, breathy, scratchy, pure, etc.
But that’s just me. Others feel passionate about the expanded use of the term ‘chiff’, and it’s been an ongoing (if only occasionally) discussion for over 20 years on the various incarnations of this message board
I haven’t seen the chiff discussions. To me “chiff” means air flow heard that isn’t being converted to musical tone, yet is heard at a very minor level and acceptable as part of the tone of the instrument when it’s being played properly. No whistle reaches 100% in converting all molecules of air flow into musical tone, and the better-designed instruments have chiff that assists in the quality of tone, rather than subtracting from it.
I consider “scratchy” to be when the instrument is failing, the note is breaking apart or isn’t arriving well. That can be due to over-blowing or under-blowing a particular note. It can also be because the instrument isn’t designed well enough or has a mechanical fault. So if the player has practiced on that instrument and knows how to best create the tone with adequate air pressure for a particular note, and the instrument is clean (doesn’t have any insects inside it or shards of sandwich or oatmeal around the window area), and it still sounds scratchy, vs having some chiff, then the whistle is crap and either needs cleaning, surgical adjusting, to be returned for a refund, or converted into a rain spout lawn sprinkler. Best of luck with the el-cheapo whistles that work great as lawn sprinklers!
I know you said metal, but I want to at least put in a plug for some non-metal options. I can’t hear a lot of difference between my better quality non-metals and my brass or aluminum ones—and the non-metals will be very durable and resistant to environmental issues.
My Carbony doesn’t seem particularly chiffy to me—compared to my Clarke Sweetone (my first whistle) which is so chiffy it annoys me. I prefer purer sounding whistles though clearly there are some who feel that gets away from the traditional whistle sound.
The Carbony has a lifetime guaranty and, being made of carbon fibre, ebonite, and anodized aluminum, should be pretty impervious to environmental factors. They are pretty pricey, though people are also suggesting Burkes and Oz whistles that are on the more expensive end of the scale.
On the less expensive side of things, I recently got a Hoover phenolic resin and really like it. Very little chiff in my opinion and, with no metal, should also be pretty durable.
Becker whistles are also worth a look. A bit more chiffy to my ear, but not problematically so, and made of very durable PVC pipe and very inexpensive.
Seems like different people have a different take on just exactly what ‘chiff’ is…
Some think it’s the breathiness, some the attack…
Is there no clear definition as to what it is regarding a whistle(?).
: the initial sound made by air leaving the mouth of a wind instrument (such as an organ flue pipe or a flute) at the attack (see attack entry 2 sense 5) of a note The chiff is a sudden, short-lived burst of upper harmonics that occurs whenever an organ key is depressed and a note is sounded.—
There may be two camps involved here that may be one in the musical sense. Seems to me that whether the non-musical wind sound shows up in the initial attack or the ongoing sound, does it really matter? To me the musician, playing for fun or into a microphone with sharp ears (rather than to a room of Webster’s employees who have their own priorities), I will hear it all and I want to know how the instrument plays; I don’t want extra wind sounds going on that don’t contribute admirably to the tone of the instrument. So whether it’s called chiff or Leprechaun Fawning or Microphone Coprolite or breathiness or noise porn or Irish mist or Lord Arthur’s Lust or Dragon’s Ardor or St. Elmo’s Fire or O’Carolan’s Bean Salad or Taxi Cab Banter or Magnesium Scratchite or Brass Ass Disease or Ear Plug Ebola or Entropic Dissonance or Firestone Deathtreads or EQ Maggoo or Wind In The Trees or Secret Mystic Elf Messages or Tyrannosaurus Chiffex or Winter White Noise or Accordion Wheeze or Pneumonia Tone or Stormin’ Organ or Wurlitzer Public Pressure or Sweet Nessie’s Methane, I’m OK with that, as long as I don’t get it from my whistle. To the session!
As far as I know “chiff” and “chiffy” are pipe organ terms and concepts.
I’d never heard these terms applied to whistles (which I’ve played since the mid-1970s) until I joined this site.
Here is what this organist considers a “chiffy” organ
So, as Sedi said earlier, despite what chiffy means in connection with other instruments, I have always assumed it meant “breathy” which we have all heard listening to both live and recorded whistle tunes. Personally, I like both breathy and not-so-breathy whistles. The Burke is the least “chiffy-breathy” whistle I have played. There are others. My favorite collection, the Freemans, are on the clear, less chiffy/breathy side, but still breathier than the Burke. However, I recall Richard once referring to some whistles having a “dirty” sound, and this too, made sense, but when I read his reference to a sound being “dirty” I equated it to my definition of breathy. I think he was referring to two Killarneys he had. While the Killarney is not a chiffy whistle by design, some are chiffier, breathier, dirtier than one another.
An interesting exchange in the comments:
Hugh’s definition of chiff, though different, still deals with the attack phase of the sound.
Leprechan Fawning! I Love it!
My problem is not that chiff actually means something specific and different in the real world. Chiff doesn’t seem to have a specific standard meaning even here, which it makes communication harder, not easier.
Regarding scratchiness. I mentioned that because traditional Generations are not pure in tone (unless tweaked), and they have a little scratchy edge to the notes. I find that quality pleasant, and it something I prefer over whistles with a clean, resonant non-“scratchy” quality. I like my Killarney because it retains a little of the scratchy Generation sound.
Notice that even if I use a non-standard word like “scratchy”, I reference a source which many people might have experience with.
I don’t have any references for breathy or chiffy, so I remain confused.
Yes all these aural things are hard to put into language that has universally agreed-upon meaning.
Yes organ chiff, seems to me, is a thing with the attack where there’s a slight delay in the pipe speaking and when it does speak there’s an initial “chiff” of sound created from higher harmonics. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a whistle do that, if so it wouldn’t be a whistle I’d want to play. To do Irish cuts and pats crisply you need an immediate clean attack.
About sustained tone, it’s usually called timbre.
According to the presence or lack of presence of higher harmonics timbre will be somewhere along this continuum:
dark/dull/tubby/throaty/hollow > > > > > > > > bright/ringing/nasal/buzzy
(Note that some of the terms are pejorative, some ameliorative.)
According to how focused the tone is, it will somewhere along this continuum:
unfocused/breathy > > > > > > > focused/clean/pure
The curious thing to me is how the tone of the MK is dirty/gravelly yet has a strong focused core. The MK is very air-efficient which tells me that it’s focused (an unfocused airstream wastes air) so what is the “dirty” element?
A whistle can have some breathiness but still be air-efficient. As far as my own experiments go and what I have read – it is mainly determined by the geometry of the labium and the window length. Longer window means more “breathiness”/air noise but at the same time to a certain degree higher backpressure (if the window is too long the whistle won’t sound at all. Been there, done that. Placing the fipple block and windway cover at the exact right spot to achieve the desired playing characteristics is always the most tricky part when making a whistle). So that leads to the paradoxical situation that a breathy whistle can have a high backpressure and little air consumption. While a very clean sounding whistle can still be an “air hog”. I had a closer look at my MK and it has a really sharp labium. That adds breathiness to the sound. A slightly dulled labium makes the sound less “airy”/breathy. A whistle with a shorter window and steeper angle of the labium tends to have a cleaner sound, less backpressure and easier 2nd octave.
So I suspect the sound of the MK is purely a result of the window/windway/labium geometry.