<p>Agree with BassDad, I would never buy an expensive instrument without the hands-on (or “mouth-on”!) (sorry) advice of a professional. D has a good, student clarinet which we bought after her teacher went to the shop, set aside 3 that she thought were excellent, then we picked the one that sounded the best with D. Every hand-made instrument will be different (and subject to human error). Everybody’s anatomy is different. D is ready to move up and we will ask the teacher to do the same in the next go-around, even more so now as they do get way more expensive. We of course paid the teacher to do this but it was worth it.</p>