Amati Full-Boehm Clarinet

The Amati full Boehm model ACL 615 is available in Prague, and costs very much less than other makers' offerings. Details are on this page of the Amati website , and the contact for the Prague shop is Thomas Prem .

The differences between Full-Boehm and standard Boehm are:
1. The additional semitone in length, giving low Eb and also a very good alternative to the throat Bb.
2. The auxiliary Ab/Eb for the left hand little finger.
3. The articulated C#/G#; the hole is closed by any of the right hand ring keys, making certain trills and runs easier (as on a saxophone). There is also an additional C#/G# key for the right hand: this seems the least useful of all the extras.
4. A true-tuned forked Eb/Bb is available for the left hand (fingers 1 and 3) - this is very useful.

Regarding item 3 above, this arrangement means that the only cup on the instrument that is not positively opened or positively closed is the C#G#. The pad may stick down, as it relies on a weak spring to open it. This fault is also common in saxophones. 

For a more detailed comparison of standard and full Boehm, click here.

The picture shows the additional keys. You might also notice the small hole underneath the lh Eb/Bb trill key; this is closed by ring lh2 (and therefore by any rh ring) but not by lh3, so that the forked Eb/Bb gets good tuning.

The only fingering difficulty I have found is in the positioning of the left hand little finger keys, this may be because lh3 ring forces its hole to be less offset than on standard Boehm model.