One of the hottest affordable student saxophones on the market! The Jean Paul AS-400

The Jean-Paul AS-400 is a high-quality student-level saxophone that has caught the attention of a global audience in recent months.  Despite its relatively low price tag, it boasts a superior level of build quality, ergonomics, and, most importantly, tone quality.  

Jean-Paul USA is based in Miami and while their instruments are sourced from East Asia the instruments undergo a rigorous set-up operation in their Miami workshops before being shipped to various distribution points around the World.  At Sax.co.uk we are proud to now work in partnership with this dedicated team at Jean-Paul, enhancing their work with our pre-checks before shipping to our customers. 

Features

• Material: Brass
• Finish: Gold lacquered
• Key Touches: White plastic
• Neck: AS-400 design
• Engraving: Floral design engraving
• Case: Square back-pack style
• Mouthpiece: Jean-Paul plastic mouthpiece
• Made in: China
• Free Professional Set Up & Free Check over within a Year
• Recommended for Students 

Staff review

This student sax caught my attention following some very positive reviews from some notable YouTube gurus such as Better Sax and Saxologic.  We established contact with each other and they kindly sent me a sample of their alto and tenor models.  I was hugely impressed right from the get-go.  The presentation, the quality of the case, and in the context of student saxes sourced from China I felt like I was handling something that had been very well put together - a solid build, smooth ergonomics, and nice even and relatively light action.  The real test, of course, is how it plays.  And the answer to this is that it played beautifully, up and down the entire range, without any snags at all.  Quite often, when an instrument ships all that way, an instrument may not hold its set-up and need a certain amount of regulation work, but it felt as though the horn had just been handed to me straight from the technician's bench!  The response was immediate, and the tone took on a nice centered quality, with a degree more 'darkness' in the sound than is normal for a modern student instrument.

This test was done using my trusty old Meyer as that's what I'm used to.  However, I thought it would be interesting to see how it responded to the stock mouthpiece that it ships with - and the answer to this is that it plays very well with the JP mouthpiece and ligature.  If you are a beginner you will be fine with this mouthpiece, which offers a rounded sound with a decent response.

My final point would be that the intonation is very good and stable throughout, often a nagging area on saxes with a price tag much higher than this.  Great job from Jean Paul overall and I think we have found ourselves a new student sax that offers superb value across the board. Jim Cheek - SAX