Aulos A709BW Haka Alto Recorder - Woodgrain

The Aulos A709BW Haka Alto Recorder was designed after instruments made by Richard Haka, a 17th-century European recorder maker. It is made of sturdy ABS resin with a very attractive matte woodgrain finish and ivory ABS accents, with Baroque (Modern) fingering and a curved windway.

This recorder is made for performance, and has been widely reviewed as the best plastic alto available. It is great for solo or ensemble performance and is also a great practice recorder for those whose main instruments are wood.

The outfit includes a soft vinyl zipper case, joint grease, cleaning rod, clip-on thumb rest, and fingering chart.

Groth Music's recorder specialist, Liz, says:

"There are essentially four choices for professional-level plastic alto recorders. All of them are very good, and ideally, you will want to play them all to see which you like the best - somewhere like Groth's store in Bloomington, MN.

1. Yamaha YRA-312B/YRA-314B woodgrain altos and Aulos A503B alto - the clearest tone, but still with a good deal of warmth and roundness. All are very similar to each other.

2. Aulos A790B Haka brown alto - warm, round tone. There's not as much difference between the A709B and the A709BW altos as there is between the sopranos A703B and A703BW, but the woodgrain is, appropriately, a little woodier in tone.

3. Yamaha YRA-402B Ecodear beige alto - plays more smoothly than any other plastic alto, with a warm, round, complex tone. A great solo instrument.

4. Aulos A709BW - warm, rich, complex, woody tone. A great solo instrument. I can't imagine anyone regretting buying one of these.

All of these sound great in their own ways, and I did not notice any significant differences in ease of playing or intonation between them that could not be better attributed to my own playing tendencies.

Full disclosure: I play a YRA-314B alto, and have played mostly Yamahas since the late 1980's."

Model:	A709BW
Manufacturer:	Aulos