Six great Low Ds ranked...by an amateur player!

Whistle
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I am lucky enough to own six quality low Ds and I decided to post a brief ranking/review. Please be aware that, even if I didn’t start playing Low Ds yesterday, I still consider myself a beginner, my skills are quite limited but, although I know that I will never be a Tony Hinnighan, a Phil Hardy or a Davy Spillane, I get much joy in playing this instrument for my own pleasure. Therefore, I consider this ranking/review a sort of divertissement to satisfy, maybe, the curiosity of some forum members, rather than a professional review! I also play acoustic guitar since fifty years and I play the recorder, so I like to think that I can understand some qualities as good intonation, for example.
First of all, I must say that I am very happy with all six of them. I had a few others in the past that I decided not to keep. A plastic Dixon, tapered, that had a nice flutey tone but it was very quiet and quite fragile with the low register i.e. it was very easy to jump to the second octave. An old traditional Howard Low D, which I owned many years ago, that I sold because I found its tone to be a bit too “reedy” for my tastes. And a recent Susato Dublin, which had quite a bold sound but a bit similar to a recorder, and was quite difficult to play because the tone holes were unusually stretched.
Let’s start, then ! (note: all whistles, apart from the Howard, are in the non-tunable version)

  1. Howard Low D, alloy (not brass), with the new 2020 “Chiff” mouthpiece. My vote: 10. What a fantastic whistle. The new 'Chiff" moiuthpiece, that I had the privilege to be one of the first to receive, is a real hit. It is more “chiffy/breathy” than the standard Howard mouthpiece, still it retains the boldness of the Howard low Ds. This whistle is also very easy to play, for me, the tone holes placement seems quite natural for my hands. It is, also, the loudest of the six.
  2. Chieftain Thunderbird low D. My vote: 10. This is really a favorite of mine. May be not the easiest to play among the six, but for me it has that “dream” sound. Powerful, breathy but not too much. A superb whistle that I am looking to master in the months to come, and that I am sure will be a keeper forever.
  3. Kerry Optima Low D. My vote: 10. I still do not understand how Phil Hardy is capable to offer such a great low D for that price. The Optima is probably the low D that I take out of the drawer more often than the others. Great sound, easy to play, superb intonation. My hat’s off to it (and to Phil).
  4. Chieftain V5 low D. My vote: 9. This is possibly the most famous and best sold low whistle in the world. And I can easily understand why. It has a sort of windy haunting sound that makes it unique among the six whistles that I own. It is a tiny bit quiet compared to the Thunderbird. I give it a 9 instead of a 10 only because of my very personal taste. I like a low D that has a “chiffy/breathy” sound, but in my very modest opinion may be Phil Hardy has gone a bit too far with this latest version. I remember a previous version (may be a V3?) that I owned several years ago, before I stopped playing low Ds for a few years, that if my memory does not fail had a perfect balance in the tone. Superb whistle, though.
  5. Nightingale Low D (aluminum body, abs mouthpiece). My vote: 8 1/2. This is hand made in Russia. I like it very much, it has a beautiful sound (it reminds me of the Kerry Optima’s ) however it has unusually stretched tone holes that force also my left hand (which is not small) to adopt the piper grip (I do not usually need to use it for the left hand with the other low Ds). I may be wrong, but I also think that it needs more control in the higher register in order to get the best intonation. Still, a great instrument, with a relatively affordable price.
  6. Shearwater Low D (aluminum body and mouthpiece). My vote: 8 1/2. I received this low Ds just a few days ago, therefore I have not played it enough to formulate a full judgement. My vote could easily change in the future! It has a nice balance of “breathy/chiffy” and “flutey” sound. It is the quietest among the six. Also, i find that I need to put more attention when I play the low register in order not to jump inadvertently to the second octave.
    Thank you for your attention, and please, remember that these are very personal impressions from a beginner! Here is the link to a photo of the six whistles: https://ibb.co/f0KB0DB
2

Thanks for the reviews!

The new Howard sounds intriguing. My only experience is with a very early Howard, which was quite strange. Like most makers he’s probably been steadily improving the design.

The Venn Diagram of the Low Ds you and I have owned and reviewed seems to have little overlap!

Only the Susato and the Optima, however like the Howard, the Optima I played was a very early one (the tour one) and it’s likely that the new ones are different.

3

Hi Richard. David took the business from mr. Howard a few years ago and I believe that he made geat improvements to Howard whistles. I also had an old Howard low D several years ago and this new one, especially with the Chiff mouthpiece option, is on another planet! The Susato that I had and that I sold was the Dublin model, I never played the Kildare model. Maybe it us different.

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still it retains the boldness of the Howard low Ds.

I’m surprised at these assessments. I used to have an old-style Howard low D that looked just like a great big standard plastic-top whistle (i.e. plastic mouthpiece on brass tube) and remember it as being anything but reedy or bold. Think it was also sharp in the second octave, exacerbating its already somewhat delicate nature.

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I’ll second the praise for the Kerry Optima. I think their performance and tone is right up there with whistles twice the cost and the build quality is sharp.

-Peter

6

Yes the early one I had was like that, quite sharp in the 2nd octave.

I found that I could play it in tune if I went against every instinct and blew harder for the low octave and softer for the 2nd octave.

In the end I couldn’t get used to the strange voicing.

I first heard the Howard in the mid-1980s when I saw the band The Easy Club. That guy made it sound fantastic, and I bought one as soon as I could, which sort of dates the Howard I had.

7

The new Howard Low Ds built by David are, in my mind, first class whistles. And I am not in any way associated with Howard, it is just my opinion!

8

Mine was no later than 1985 because it was an impulse buy (kindly paid for by my uncle) on spotting/trying it in a shop in Oban when my relatives were over from New Zealand, and I have photos of them in Scotland that year. I subsequently bought a Bernard Overton (also sold since) sometime early 1990s and now have just Brackers in low whistles.