If well maintained, a used horn can be just as mechanically secure (or even more so) as a new instrument.

A used horn can already be broken in, and lets you skip this. Horns, like any instrument, have a “break-in period” where they feel a bit stiff and less responsive.This means you can either save some money, or get a higher-quality instrument for the same cost! For most mass-produced, non-custom instruments, used prices will be appreciably lower than the new price.While it’s a nice idea to buy a brand-new horn, there may be some good reasons to buy something that has been used. For this price, you may be able to find an older instrument, but lower than this and the horn may require significant repairs or be a poorly made horn like I mentioned above. If you’re interested in used horns, I would set a floor of around $1,500 (more is better). Sometimes the cost of repairing just the valves on these horns is higher than the cost of the horn. Often times with these cheap horns the valves don’t fit, the slides fall out, the solder joints are poorly done, and the tapered parts of the horn are all messed up. If you’re looking for a new double horn, I recommend starting your budget at no lower than about $3,500 (more is better), since any new horn costing less than this is generally going to be manufactured in China with questionable quality control. For a double horn, you can spend anywhere between $200 – $18,000, so having a budget is crucial to narrow down your choices.

In order to get the horn that’s best for you, the first thing to do is to establish your (realistic) budget for a new horn.

Buying a French Horn: Establish Your Budget First!īuying a French horn is a significant investment of money.

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