{"id":100502,"date":"2020-09-11T10:12:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T14:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/?p=100502"},"modified":"2025-12-12T10:54:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:54:33","slug":"boston-sax-shop-superlative-tenor-saxophone-ligature-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/boston-sax-shop-superlative-tenor-saxophone-ligature-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, I am reviewing a beautiful new saxophone ligature I received from Jack Tyler at the Boston Sax Shop<\/a>.\u00a0 It is the Boston Sax Shop Superlative Sax Ligature for hard rubber tenor sax mouthpieces.<\/p>\n

I have reviewed a number of Boston Sax Shop products on this site in the past and have written about Jack Tyler a number of times as well.\u00a0 Jack is the sax repair technician that I choose to take my horns to when they need some tender loving care. (Jack learned his saxophone repair skills by working side by side with my old repairman and friend, Ernie Sola, who sadly passed away a number of years ago) It’s an eight hour roundtrip drive down to Boston and back from Vermont but it is worth it for me to make sure my horns are taken care of the way that I like them to be.<\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every time I have have talked with Jack, I am struck by his focus and attention to excellence and quality.\u00a0 He puts a ton of time and thought into each product that he has introduced to the saxophone market whether it be a reed case, saxophone neck, saxophone reeds, neck strap or a saxophone ligature.\u00a0 Jack’s top concern, is creating an exceptional product that is of the highest standards.<\/p>\n

The BSS Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature is another product created with these high standards in mind.\u00a0 The Superlative saxophone ligature is three things: beautiful, functional and simple.<\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here is the description of the Boston Sax Shop Superlative Sax Ligature from the Boston Sax Shop website:<\/p>\n

The impetus for Superlative Ligature literally started as a midnight sketch on the back of a cocktail napkin at the NAAM show in 2018. I wanted to create something solid, practical, vintage inspired and a yet fresh offering for saxophone players. The design language draws from my favorite three ligatures from the past: The Selmer \u20182 Screw\u2019, Magnitone and Harrison. The result of 2 years of prototyping and listening to the feedback of some of the most notable saxophonists in the world is the Superlative Ligature. It features a single piece body design made up of 3 distinct radiuses that allow for plenty of reed\/mouthpiece vibration while being solid and stable fitting on the mouthpiece. The laser cut reed contact plate grips evenly while giving the middle section of the reed room to breathe, as this is a common area for a new reed to swell, creating the optimum seal. The two screw inverted orientation is simple and ergonomic.<\/em><\/p>\n

The \u2018hand finished\u2019 option involves adding a jewelry technique finish called stippling to the outside of the ligature. Each one is individual and personally done by myself.\u00a0 -Jack Tyler<\/em><\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Superlative sax ligature is first of all beautiful!\u00a0 It comes in six finishes that you can choose from which include raw brass, 18k gold and silver plated.\u00a0 Besides having these three finishes to choose from, you can also choose to have your ligature come with a “stippled” finish as in the photo below.\u00a0 Jack describes this as “The \u2018hand finished\u2019 option involves adding a jewelry technique finish called stippling to the outside of the ligature. Each one is individual and personally done by myself.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I really like the “stippled” look as it makes the ligature even more beautiful in my opinion.\u00a0 It looks like a beautiful piece of fine jewelry!<\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

Secondly, the Superlative ligature is functional.\u00a0 It is a simple two screw design that will not slide or move once tightened.\u00a0 It holds the reed on the mouthpiece which is the bottom line goal of any ligature.<\/p>\n

I personally like the two screw design as I like to adjust the tightness of the rear screw or front screw to fine tune the response and playability of the reed.\u00a0 Usually, if I want to get a bigger more spread sound, I feel like loosening the front screw a tad will free up the reed just enough to get a bigger and wider tone.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, if I feel the tone of a reed is too spread or wild, I will tighten the front screw to clamp down the reed a little bit more.\u00a0 I feel like this gives me a more focused and compact sound.<\/p>\n

You might disagree with my views on the effects of the screws on a ligature, but I encourage you to experiment with these two screws yourself and see if you can notice any difference.<\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thirdly, the Superlative ligature is simple!\u00a0 For a gigging sax player, this is a huge plus for a ligature.\u00a0 I can’t tell you the frustration I have had in dark nightclubs with complex ligature designs.\u00a0 It’s one thing in a well lit room at home to put on a reed with a complex ligature but in a dark nightclub room it can be awful.<\/p>\n

The BSS Superlative ligature is easy to see and the simple design makes it easy to put on and take off.\u00a0 More importantly, once the ligature is on, it will not move when you are adjusting your mouthpiece for tuning or putting on a mouthpiece cap.<\/p>\n

The Superlative ligature fits easily on all of my hard rubber tenor sax mouthpieces.\u00a0 Jack has made the screws so that the ligature can be opened wider to fit on a fat hard rubber Otto Link tenor sax mouthpiece or tightened down to fit on a slightly more narrow hard rubber tenor mouthpiece like a D’Addario tenor sax mouthpiece or Vandoren V16 tenor sax mouthpiece.<\/p>\n

I love the extra long screws because it gives a lot of flexibility to the ligature and if the metal of the ligature were to stretch over time, there is so much room with the screws that you won’t be in danger of running out of room for the screws to tighten more.<\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Superlative sax ligature has a reed plate that sits on the reed and according to BSS, “The laser cut reed contact plate grips evenly while giving the middle section of the reed room to breathe, as this is a common area for a new reed to swell, creating the optimum seal.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I can’t vouch for the effectiveness of this oval cutout in the reed plate or the description above but it does sound good to me.\u00a0 I personally do not like ligatures that hold the reed on the outside edges of the reed only.\u00a0 The Rovner Platinum ligature is one ligature that does this and it always seems to give me a “hollowness” to the tone that I don’t like.<\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Superlative ligature reed plate is narrow enough that the outside edges of the reed are not clamped down as you can see in the photo below.\u00a0 I also like that you can see the reed plate while placing the ligature on the reed so you can make sure it is lined up with the center of the reed also.<\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reed plate is the only part of the ligature that is in contact with the reed.\u00a0 The metal band of the ligature does not touch the side corners of the reed as you can see in the photo below.\u00a0 In my mind, this allows more of the reed to vibrate and respond which will produce a more lively sound.<\/p>\n

The BSS logo on the front of the ligature makes centering the ligature much easier as you can use the logo to judge how centered the ligature is on the reed.<\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

I know most of the sax players who are reading this will want to know of the sonic effects and incredible benefits of using this BSS Superlative ligature over all other ligature and sadly, I am not going to address that today.\u00a0 All I can say is that I love how the Superlative ligature looks!\u00a0 I love how simple and reliable it is!\u00a0 Lastly,\u00a0 I used it with the above Saxquest Core tenor mouthpiece and I absolutely loved my saxophone tone, sound and response.\u00a0 Those three things make me very happy so in my mind, the BSS Superlative ligature gets a thumbs up from me!!<\/p>\n

As far as comparing it sonically to every other ligature on the market, that will have to wait for another day when I have more time.\u00a0 You can also read my blog articles on “What difference does the ligature make?”\u00a0 Part 1<\/a> and Part 2<\/a>\u00a0for more information on the effects of ligatures…….<\/p>\n

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Boston Sax Shop Superlative Tenor Saxophone Ligature<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you are interested in the beautiful Boston Sax Shop Superlative tenor saxophone ligature, you can get one at the Boston Sax Shop website<\/a>. \u00a0 Neffmusic also gets a small commission from each sale using this link which helps support this website,\u00a0 so thank you in advance if you use the link.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Jack Tyler for creating another fabulous product for the saxophone community and thank you for sending me one of these Superlative ligatures to review.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: I received the BSS Superlative ligature reviewed above for free in the hope that I would try it and perhaps review it on my blog. I also receive a small commission when you purchase from the Boston Sax Shop website<\/a> using the link<\/a>\u00a0above that helps to support this site. Regardless, I only review sax mouthpieces and other sax related gear that I enjoy playing and believe will be good for other saxophone players to try also. Steve<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, I am reviewing a beautiful new saxophone ligature I received from Jack Tyler at the Boston Sax Shop.\u00a0 It is the Boston Sax Shop Superlative Sax Ligature for hard rubber tenor sax mouthpieces. I have reviewed a number of Boston Sax Shop products on this site in the past and have written about Jack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":100548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[1685,1715,129,1627,361,658,1992,72,265],"class_list":{"0":"post-100502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-saxophone-stuff","8":"tag-boston-sax-shop","9":"tag-bss","10":"tag-hard-rubber","11":"tag-ligature","12":"tag-mouthpiece","13":"tag-review","14":"tag-superlative","15":"tag-tenor-sax","16":"tag-tenor-saxophone","17":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100502"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125862,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100502\/revisions\/125862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}