Hohner Silver Star C Harmonica > Reviews > Five Silver Stars for this Harp

Author's product rating:   

How well constructed is it?	very well
Appearance	Very cool
Quality of sound	superb
Playability	very playable
Value for money	excellent

Advantages:	Great price and value, top quality instrument
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I have been playing the harmonica for over thirty years.

Of all the instruments I play this is the one that have done best at, probably because it is the least anti-social, most portable and most convenient. Being a lot quieter that most of my musical stable also helps.

I've owned some terrible harmonicas over the years, usually the cheap ones but when I splashed out in 1984 on a Hohner C Blues Harp I found what I was looking for. It is a basic twelve hole harmonica that has stood the test of time.

Before Christmas I looked at my old harp and decided that it might be time for it to go into partial retirement. Having spent about £24 on it and played it thousands of times it was looking a bit battered and scratched. It still plays beautifully, no dead reeds, fantastic tone so when I went looking for the next generation it was Hohner that interested me.

I found the Silver Star in a great music shop, Harmony Music in Dorchester, and bought it, despite the fact that it was only £5.99!!!

So what's it like?
It has a long wearing plastic body, or Comb, as they are known. The covers, which are matt black on the Blues harp, are finished in bright chrome and has Hohner International embossed on one side and Silver Star on the other. The back of the comb has "HOHNER" printed in silver on the back. It comes it a rigid ABS plastic case to protect it, which is a definite improvement on the soft vinyl case that the blues harp lives in.

The sound?
Well, I'm still playing the Blues Harp, the tone and the ability to bend the notes remains excellent, the Silver Star can bend, but not quite as well as the Blues Harp. Being fair, the Harp took a while to wear in so I am expecting great things in the future. The basic notes are just as good as the harp, the bending takes a little more effort with the new one but I think, that especially considering the price paid, that the Silver Star is definitely worth buying.

Recommendation?

Absolutely. A lot of people are put off the Harmonica by getting a poor instrument, a lot of the Chinese instruments are badly made, have poor tone and the reeds fail within weeks. This can put off a budding Bob Dylan in no time. Now that a quality instrument is available at a really great price it is well worth getting one to try. The Blues harp is still a superior instrument but from a cost angle this is a superb investment.

Warning

Carrying a Harmonica in your pocket all the time can be dangerous for two reasons:
Firstly, people may take exception to you pulling it out and playing at random intervals through the day.
Secondly, it can be very uncomfortable for a gentleman to be poked severely in the soft places by a rigid instrument in a hard case. The resultant breathlessness can make playing a bit of a challenge.