• Hohner for a Price

  
  As reviewed by Don Wuethrick on 1/30/2012

  If you are a Marine Band player and want to experiment with the low keys, then you will be well-pleased to see this. The best feature of this harp is the Filisko cover design. The conical lower cover plate provides ample clearance to keep the draw reeds (which happen to be fairly long on my Low-A) from contacting the cover plate during play. This is the first Marine Band to use this design. If you had a low key Marine Band in the past, you notice that the bottom cover plate does not have such a provision for reed clearance. On the cover plate design, Hohner gets an A (thanks to Joe Filisko). The reeds are not the typical low-key reed. Other low-key harps usually have some additional metal welded to the free ends of the low reeds. The reeds on the Thunderbird appear to have a thicker profile at the free end, so it is one piece of metal. Not sure how important that really is, but on that, Hohner gets another A. The comb is nicely sealed. I have a slew of Crossovers. I think this comb is sealed better than any of the Crossover combs. On that, Hohner gets an A. The tuning and setup of the reed plates seems to be the compromise tuning and the tolerances are set nicely to play out of the box and get the bends very easily. On a Low-A, I can hit the second bend under the draw 2. That takes a lot of effort, but on a Low-A, pretty impressive. On reed setup, Hohner gets an A. The attention to detail is the final part of my review. The cover plates have seams that are welded together to eliminate the pinch points that are sometimes present. This is very important in blues harp because you are usually playing along the 1, 2, and 3 and if the edges are sharp, well, that's not a good thing. On my Thunderbird, three of the four joints are nicely welded together, but the joint under the 1 draw is not. In fact, the gap is fairly sizeable. Now, I sent a photo to Hohner but have yet to hear from them. This is where Hohner fails and fails miserably. I also have a collection of Seydel harmonicas and Lee Oskars. Both companies are extremely responsive. In fact, I have spoken with Lee himself a few times and with Seydel's reps several times. They work to resolve issues and they do it well. Hohner fails at this. Customer support is poor to say the least. This leads to my final point...price. The price of this harp is outrageous. It is double the price of a Crossover. My suggestion is that if you want a low-tuned harp, go to Seydel. They have LLF for $79.95. You can't beat that. Also, if you have an issue with it, you can feel good about it knowing that the issue will be resolved. Seydel is the only truly German harmonica company remaining. Hohner is no longer a majority owned German company. The issues I described with the Thunderbird in terms of service and attention to detail lead me to believe that if you like Hohner and you like the fact that they are made in Germany, buy them now. I don't think it will be like that for long. This is purely speculation, but the shift toward big business practices, like poor customer service, lack of response, low attention to detail, etc. leads me to believe that profit is the motivation behind the K.H.S. Musical Instrument Co. Ltd. of Taipei, Taiwan (Hohner's majority owner). I admire the history of the blues and love the legacy of the Marine Band, but hate to see things start to walk away from that heritage. Overall, I love the harp. It is super playable and would like to see the price come into a reasonable range for what it is and the attention to detail rise to a level for what I would expect of a name like Hohner.

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