The other day I reviewed three tenor saxophone mouthpieces made by Donghee Cho in Seoul, South Korea. They were the Model 1, the Brecker II and the Brecker III tenor sax mouthpiece models. You can read how I was contacted by Donghee and asked to review his sax mouthpieces on any one of those reviews.
Today, I am reviewing one of his alto saxophone mouthpieces. This is the A2 model alto sax mouthpiece. It has “AII” etched on the side of it along with “D&S” and “Donghee”. It is an 8 tip opening. I’m not sure what the measurements of an 8 are but I feel most comfortable around .080 and this mouthpiece feels like it is close to that tip opening.
D&S A2 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
If you want some information on Donghee Cho and D&S Sax mouthpieces, here is a quote from Donghee after I asked him his background and how long he has been making mouthpieces:
D&S A2 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
I have to admit, I have had these mouthpieces sitting on my shelf since June. The reason I haven’t done a review sooner is that after doing some research, I realized that I couldn’t find D&S Saxophone Mouthpieces on the internet, they don’t have a website and they didn’t have a Facebook page. All I had was an email address and phone number. Since that time, Donghee now has a Facebook page although it is very minimal with just a bad picture of a list of his mouthpiece models on it. I don’t see any prices so I don’t even know how much these go for either.
Even though I don’t think D&S is optimally setup for modern internet consumers I thought it best to go ahead with the reviews. If they get more of a web presence in the future at least you would have heard of them and have some knowledge of Donghee Cho and his products.
D&S A2 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
Donghee sent me five mouthpieces in a couple of different shipments. I have three metal tenor mouthpieces and two metal alto sax mouthpieces. The mouthpieces have high baffles in general. The mouthpiece I am reviewing today is the AII alto mouthpiece and has an 8 tip opening.
The rails, tip and baffle all look great to the eye. The tip matches my Rigotti reeds nicely. It has a high baffle that looks to have a very slight rollover and then continues down in a straight line to the drop off edge into the chamber. I would say the chamber is medium-small in size. The sidewalls are straight but are scooped out inside the chamber area.
These saxophone mouthpieces all come in a plastic tube with a silver mouthpiece cap and ligature. I used the silver metal alto ligature that came with it. It fit perfectly and went on smoothly.
D&S A2 Alto Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece
I used a Rigotti Gold 2 1/2 Strong reed on the sample recording below which worked great with this 8 tip opening. The mouthpiece has a powerful bright core sound to it with edge when played at full throttle. I found it to be about as “Sanborn” as you can get with a mouthpiece. If you ever listen to Dave Sanborn, he has a very unique sound. Super bright and focused with a good amount of edge and grit to the tone. That is also a good description of the A2 tone. Along with that description, it is also really powerful! I recorded with the gain way down on the mic and still was clipping the mic volume out. I ended up having to turn the mic all the way down and then turn the gain to -30 to be able to record without clipping. I think that is a record for me……
The high baffle tends to make my middle E and surrounding notes a bit sharper on my Selmer Reference 54 alto saxophone but that is normal for a high baffle mouthpiece on this horn. I just had to bring those notes down a little bit when held.
I am not a big altissimo player on the alto sax as I have issues with my hearing where notes that high distort and tend to irritate me but I felt I should go up there a bit for the sake of this mouthpiece. I played along with Dave Sanborn’s “Straight to the Heart” a couple of times before making this clip so you might recognize some of the “Sanborn” type licks in my sound clip. I was a crazy “Sanborn” nut in high school in the 80’s and had most of that solo memorized back then. I can’t help but go in that direction when I play an alto sax mouthpiece like this.
I don’t play much straight ahead lines on this clip until the last few seconds of the clip. You can hear how it gets a little more tame when I back off but the tone still has a brightness and pop to it even at lower volumes.
D&S A2 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
I’ve provided two samples of the same clip below. One is a clip with added reverb and the other is a dry clip in a moderate sized room. I think it’s important to add the reverb clip just so people can get a sense of what the sound is like with a little bit of that added affect since the added reverb tends to soften the brightness and edge a little bit.
D&S A2 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
If you liked the D&S A2 alto saxophone mouthpiece reviewed here you can contact Donghee to order one by email at dssax.mouthpiece@gmail.com or visit Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/DSSaxophone or instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/ds.sax.mouthpiece/. Thanks to Donghee Cho for creating these and letting me try them out. Now I’m going to go back to listening to some more Dave Sanborn……”Oh Yeah!!”…………
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D&S A2 Alto Sax Mouthpiece-Reverb Added
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D&S A2 Alto Sax Mouthpiece-Dry Recording
Ha!! I’ve been listening to all sanborn for the last 4 days for some reason.
You just needed Marcus Miller thumping in the background!
I like the second clip best without the reverb but it definitely has a nice overall sound. Not quite as bright as sanborn but pretty awesome. I’d play on it with my alto for sure
Great clip Steve
Wow. I was surprised (in a good way), and impressed. You just never know how these types of mouthpieces are going to play, but this one has a really tight core sound, very clear, and yes very bright yet still very pleasant to listen to. What impressed me was the consistent – and good – intonation across the range of the horn. Wasn’t expecting that. This just sounds like an overall really solid mouthpiece. The altissimo sounded terrific. Very clear, and consistent brightness/tone with the regular register of the horn. I’m intrigued actually. I’ve been looking for a vintage Dukoff to add to my locker for this style of sound, but they’re hard to find and a getting pretty pricey; this might be a great entree into that sound for a lot less. Any more info on how much he’s charging for these now Steve?
Great review (as always), you just give such great value here on your sight and in your newsletter. Thanks for what you do.
Best,
Scott
P.S. – I’m really curious what his “8” tip opening actually measures; it can mean anything, right? Looking at the alto facing comparison chart published by Jody Jazz, and just as an example, your preference of “around .080” pretty much lines up with a classic Otto Link standard 6*, however it’s a 5 for Rico Royal, 5* for Lakey, while it’s a 6 for Jody Jazz, Beechler, Brillhart, Drake and Rovner, but a 7 for Dukoff, Lakey, Meyer (both metal and HR), Theo Wanne and Yanigasawa. Go figure. Hard to tell anything by the stated number, really. I’d rather everyone do their numbering like Berg Larsen or Ponzol and just use the actual tip opening, it would be so much easier… “8”‘s range from .083″ (Runyon) all the way to .095″ (Otto Link), and everything imaginable in between. It’s really kind of ridiculous that there’s no standard. After all, we’ve been at this for what, 120+ years now?
Which of this mouthpiece and that of Liu Shizhao Pearls Alto seems more suitable for you to play in the style of sanborn, but also for volume of sound, ease and intonation? Thanks
Giovanni, I felt like I could do the Sanborn thing quite well on both of these mouthpieces. They both played great and I don’t remember any differences in volume, sound and intonation. You would have to listen to the sound clips for more details. Steve
They cost twice as much as a dukoff. Q. Is it worth it?
I think it is worth it just because most of the Dukoffs I have played in my life haven’t played very well for me. Once in a while I would try one that was great but all the others were not very good at all in my opinion. That being said I have only tried around 12 Dukoff tenor and alto mouthpieces in total so maybe I was just unlucky. Steve
Thanks for your availability and congratulations for your competence. Giovanni
I bought one from their facebook page for 410 USD + shipping. (in the midst of COVID, I know!), and it plays great! I wouldn’t have bought this mouthpiece without having read your reviews. It really does add credibility for these relatively unknown makers from Asia.
Having said that, D&S took a while to get back to me when I originally contacted them…