Reeds

This is more of a question than a post because I am very curious to know how others feel. 

Are reeds generally worse to play in the last ten years?

My feeling is yes. 

These days I buy a lot of reeds for all my saxes. Boxes of all the different brands and strengths and quite honestly I find the quality compared to 5-10 years before much lower. 

We've heard many people say that they can only play two or three in a box of ten but these days I find that some boxes are completely unplayable. Time and time again I've found reeds that I wouldn't even expect of the cheapest of reeds. Reeds that not only sound bad but do not even play certain notes. 

In fact in order to verify this I ordered recently a box of orange box Ricos and I found them quite a lot better than some of the more reputable brands. 

Is this only me? So far other sax players have agreed with me and all offered their own views on why. 

How do you feel? Mail me at matt-jazz@hotmail.com or leave a comment here and we can see where this goes.