I just ordered a set of E/Eb from Gary Humphrey. I have one of his in B that I started to find use for and with help from C&F was able to identify as one of his. It is light weight and has the “pure” sound I like. I noticed he replied here and I knew that had just gone full time to whistle making again. His whistles are not very pricy. You might also want to check out Gene Miligan - I just posted my experience with a C I bought from him. A bit more $ but it is now one of my all time favorite hight wight and what I think of when I think of as pure. I would recommend the practice mouthpiece.
For me they’re completely separate qualities.
Being a longtime fluteplayer I’ve experienced firsthand the thing that happens when your embouchure develops and you acquire a more focused airstream: the breathiness/noise/dirt decreases while the richness/complexity of tone increases.
In other words far from being hand-in-glove these two aspects of tone are diametric opposites, on the flute.
On the flute everything comes from focus. The power of the low notes and the sweetness of the high notes both become greater, the tone becomes richer, flexibility increases, efficiency increases, noise decreases.
When I had to stop playing flute and turned to the Low Whistle as the closest available comp my feelings about whistle tone were influenced by my flute background. I immediately rejected Low Whistles that play like a beginner fluteplayer plays, with escaping wasted air creating noise, poor efficiency, recalcitrant voicing, etc.
When I picked up an MK I thought “Finally a Low Whistle that plays like a good fluteplayer plays!” with all the wonderful things that come from a highly focused airstream. Louder AND using less air, because more of the airstream was being used to create tone, and less of it was being wasted. Flexible willingness between the registers, no having to fight the voicing and force or coerce out the high notes. Very rich gravelly tone (not the “dirt” of wasted air but the harmonics of focused air).
It’s as simple as that: poorly designed whistles play like beginner or poorly-developed fluteplayers play, and well designed whistles play like skilled fluteplayers play.
Excellent comments that clarity this issue!
There are a great number of variables in whistle design that allow differences in tone and playability while still retaining high efficiency in converting the air stream coming out of the windway, into “tone”. What I always want to avoid is inefficient processing of airstream, the useless windiness activity that uncontrollably leaves the resulting tone windy, breathy, or whatever you want to call it. Any remaining inefficiency or windiness in tone in a quality musical instrument, should have that windiness sound fully incorporated into the tone as a sense of releasing clear harmonics or some kind of desirable tonal texture.
I think that with a quality musical instrument, the tonal variations should be under the control of the player and that the instrument can respond with options, depending on the such things as the “attack” of the air pressure, the loudness or softness of playing, etc. Just because a whistle is efficient, doesn’t mean it’s going to sound just like all the other high efficiency whistles out there… or like a flute being played for purest sound. The best whistles and the best flutes still provide a wide tonal palette depending on how they are played. An intermediate level Yamaha flute has tonal quality significantly different than that of an intermediate level Jupiter flute because they have significant design differences affecting tone, yet both are great musical instruments in general, but different players prefer different things. Bravo and thanks to the many whistle and flute reviewers on YouTube, who use quality microphones and reveal this, so we can understand and compare!