On Sunday, July 20 at 9:04 PM I ordered a piccolo from simba products for my son who is in marching band. As he opened it from the box the instrument was very beautiful. However, after a few hours he realised something was wrong. He is 2nd chair at his high school and he plays flute very well. Here is a detailed report prepared by him:
The low G in the Simba Products piccolo, serial number 00150702, is accurately in tune, within plus or minus 8 cents, cents being a term referring to how in tune a note is. On average, the G on this piccolo resonates at an average frequency of 783.9 Hz, making it remarkably in tune.
However, the G# is definitely not so in tune.in fact, it had been registered a few times in the software I used for this report as a G natural that was sharp by roughly 45 cents. The average frequency that the piccolo resonated at while pressing the appropriate keys for G# was, according to the calculations of sophisticated computer software, 812.67 Hz, making it very flat, and the note ranged from -29 cents to -45 cents below the appropriate frequency of 830.609 Hz.
The cause of this inaccuracy in intonation of this note is that the build of the G# key itself does not allow it to open properly. It opens roughly half as far as it should, and although I do not have the appropriate equipment to measure this error in manufacturing in degrees, it is clearly visible in the picture I sent in an email to simba products that the key does not open nearly as far as any of the other keys on the instrument. This is due to the fact that the G# hole cover is attached to the key mechanism by a curved metal rod, instead of a straight one, and when the key is pressed, this rod bumps into another rod preventing the key from opening fully.
Therefore, it is determined that the cause of the bad intonation of G# is a manufacturing defect, in which the wrong type of hole cover device was used, and this is based not on the subjective opinions of the purchaser, but rather by scientific evidence that was collected using the scientific method along with computerized measurement tools. Not only have they manufactured a product of LOW quality, but they have falsely advertised that the piccolo has accurate intonation, since it has been established that G# is clearly not in tune.
Obviously they have problems backing their 100% quality guarantee.
Of course this incident is completely unrelated to the fact that somebody in their company gave the wrong address to FedEx and there was an attempted delivery to the WRONG address. And luckily for THEM and me, our neighbors were not home at the time, and the delivery was made to the correct address a day late. If I wanted it in 3 days, I would have asked for GROUND shipping. Not only is their company incapable of building quality instruments, they are also incapable of shipping these improperly or poorly constructed instruments to the correct address!
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