Oppinions on Sterling Silver Flutes?

[pied_piper]

Ok, I can go for that. However I think you are giving the flute WAY too much credit. A good player will sound like a good player on ANY playable instrument, even a cheap one. Giving the flute 50% of the sound it produces would mean that a good player could not sound good on a cheap instrument. This is not true at all. I would say more 90%/10% in favor of the player. I would go as high as 98%, but you have to throw in a headjoint factor.

Yeah, in retrospect 50/50 is probably weighted too heavy for the flute, but I don't think I would go as far as 90/10 for the player/flute. Maybe 70/30 or 80/20 would be closer to reality (for me anyway).

I can sound pretty good on a student or intermediate flute, but not near as good as on my sterling Muramatsu. Also, last year I visited JL Smith and tried out just about every headjoint they had in stock. I finally narrowed it down to 4 to take on trial. For my trial I chose these configurations: Sterling tube, sterling embouchure, 14K riser; Sterling tube, 14K embouchure, 14K riser; sterling tube, 14K embouchure, platinum riser; 14K tube, 14K embouchure, platinum riser.

While trying them, I also included my stock sterling headjoint in the mix. I had my wife listen from the next room as I randomly played them and asked her rank them from 1 to 5 for the best sound. I also tried them while blindfolded so that I didn't know what I was playing. In both cases when we compared our ranking, the 14K/14K/Platinum was ranked #1, the Sterling/Sterling/14K ranked #4, and my stock sterling Muramatsu ranked #5 (and I still think it sounds great, just different). For the #2 & #3 ranking, we differed on preference.

I bought the 14K/14K/Platinum...

[sidekicker]

I personally play a Miyazawa with a Sterling head with a nickle plated body and foot. When I was trying out flutes, I couldn't tell a big difference between the flutes with different amounts of silver in them [and even after attending the NFA conference the only two flutes I liked better in the showroom were a 10k gold Nagahara and a 14k Rose Gold Brannen].

Just curious... Would that happen to have been the Brannen that I bought?

SK

[fluteguy18]

No it was a different one.... I think.... Maybe. I dunno. It was actually a 14k Brannen with Sterling silver soldered tone holes, and a 10k rose gold headjoint with a platinum riser. I can't remember if the G mech was inline or offset. I just remember mostly that I loved it, and that it was one of the few flutes I tried that actually turned heads when I played it.

[sidekicker]

It was a different one then. Mine has gold (not silver) tone holes and rings. I didn't pay much attention to what head was on that flute because I already had my own gold head already that will be paired with it.