Dear Everybody. I spoke to Richard Farrel last night (this morning US time) about his part in the remanufacturing of the Meisterklasse chromatic. Richard has made a prototype plastic body which Rick Epping shall be taking to Germany later this month to be reviewed by the boys in Trossingen.Unfortunately it seems that the new model, if it ever goes into production, will have all the same components as the original, which is unfortunate.The mouthpiece assembly is poorly designed, has unsatisfactory tolerances,and is quite leaky as it comes from the factory,and my own experiments have convinced me that the coverplate design has a lot to answer for in regard to the MK's reputation for poor response and volume in the first 4 holes.When I met Willi Danneker, the former repairman for Hohner U.K., at the 1st world championships in '87 and told him that I played the MK he immediately asked if I'd come up with any ways of overcoming its design faults.The late, great Jerry Murad, also at the championships, was playing the MK at this time and as much as he liked it he said that were many small ways its design could be improved, but he 'didn't own the factory'. I've sent a check off today to Bill Romel to make me a set of wooden coverplates to fit my MK, but with an open design more like that of the CX 12 rather than the 'closed in' design of the original coverplates.I'll be happy to discuss the numerous improvements I've made to my MK with anyone if they are interested. Paul
