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From: "Adam T. Valleau"
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 23:24:56 -0800
Subject: Portnoy, Hering and Meisterklasse (cha-cha-cha!)

Hullo all!

Time for more of Harpoon's purchase reports! Thought you all would be
thrilled!

Recently received the Portnoy Masterclass disks. I've listened enough to
this teaching program now to be able to say it is very, VERY nice! I'm
gonna be spending many hours with these disks and my valved A Cross Harp
(yes, Mike, I've valved a bunch of Blues Harps and sealed them up and they
play truly wonderfully!). Great purchase! Great job Jerry!

Also, my Hering 601 swam in yesterday (and I had a can of Brazil nuts
waiting). This is a VERRY cool-looking chromatic! It has the round
mouthpiece holes that I know many don't like, along with very silvery,
shiny, somewhat rounded cover plates. Its overall look is quite reminiscent
of the Hohner Meisterklasse design. The comb is transparent, so I suppose
the material is Lucite or something similar, reminiscent of the Amadaeus.
It's really neat looking. The construction is very, very solid and the
instrument is extremely airtight. I mean *extremely*. This is the most
airtight chromatic I've yet purchased. It even beats my CX-12 for
airtightness, IMO. Of course, I've come to realize that I favor the
16-holed chromatics, for some reason (although I like good 12-holers, too).
The Hering 601 chromatic has an excellent sound, as well. Very sweet and
melodious all across its range, and, for the most part, the reeds activate
easily yet don't choke too readily. There are one or two blow reeds which
need just a little gapping, I think, to respond the way I want, but not very
much. I've played this harp about 2.5 hours total, now, with no valve
problems, so far. I realize time will tell here. The worst problem was the
10 hole blow reed (key of C) was mistuned a whole step sharp! Really weird!
Dunno how it got out of the factory like this. I quickly remedied this by
simply scraping a little on the reed near its root. Didn't take much and
now it plays on pitch just fine! Fortunately, the 10 hole is not one I use
a lot on this type of harp. I'm also toying with the idea of spray painting
the cover plates a translucent metallic red color. Two to three coats of a
durable acrylic-based paint should do it with no real risk to me after
complete drying. Then, you see, I'd have myself a RED HERING!! (Haaaa!)

Overall, I'm really pleased with this chromatic, thus far, and I feel it was
well worth the $91 price. Overall, I think this is one well-built,
sharp-looking, sweet-sounding harp!

I'm curious about other list members' experiences with the Hering 601. Do
tell. Same goes for the Hering 501, too.

Also, has anyone purchased or played the new Hohner Meisterklasse chromatic
I've seen advertised? If so, I'd like to hear your comments on this one,
too. Is this chromatic worth the $349.99 price tag (saw this in Kevin's)?
I certainly like the MK diatonics, so can I expect similar things from the
MK Chro? Do tell!

That's all........for now....

Regards,

Adam T. Valleau
(Yer Harpoon Man)
Baltimore, MD