Longtime clarinet player myself, now have a son who chose to play the clarinet in his school band.

The Good:
The description calling this an "intermediate" clarinet is mostly accurate, as this is definitely a notch above the typical student model in terms of quality and craftsmanship. All through high school I owned a Vito brand clarinet and my older sibling had a wooden Artley clarinet, and I would have to say that this Legacy clarinet is superior to both of those.

It is a "plastic" clarinet, but the woodgrain brushed finish they have on it is very nice, and it helps to cut down on fingerprints. The keys are sterling silver plated, and you can tell it’s a nicer finish than the usual nickle plating used on most other inexpensive clarinets. All the keys and springs work great, the pads are all installed/working correctly, no obvious flaws to the finish.

The case is very nice, compact, and light, while providing ample protection for the clarinet.

It comes with two barrels, which I guess results in different tone??? Not too sure about that — the only difference between the two barrels is length. The bore is identical.

I didn’t notice the brief mention of the two different barrels in the instructions (it is actually there, though), so I called the manufacturer’s toll-free number. The woman who answered the phone promptly answered my question, and then instead of quickly ending the call you typically expect from my customer service people these days, she instead asked me how I liked the clarinet and if everything else with it was fine. They seem to really back their product(s) and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another product from them in the future.

The Bad:
About the only drawback that we’ve encountered so far is that the joints are a very tight fit so it makes assembly and disassembly VERY difficult for my 11-year-old. Since it’s not a wooden clarinet, it’s not going to expand or shrink based on temperature, humidity, etc., so this isn’t going to get better (or worse) than it already is. So I had to sand down the plastic a little. I didn’t mess with the cork because it will shrink/compress with age/use, but evenly sanding down the plastic on either side of the cork with a fine sandpaper made it a more reasonable fit so it’s now easier to setup and break down. When I searched for this issue online, I was surprised to see that this is rather common with new clarinets, so it made me feel better than people with 0 clarinets were having the same issue I was with a much less expensive model. If you don’t feel comfortable correcting the tight fit of a clarinet, most instrument repair shops would do it for you for typically less than .

I’m a mom of a middle schooler staring in Band. The Band Director continued to insist that purchasing clarinets from online vendors was a very bad idea. I took a chance after doing some basic research. I was renting from a local merchant for about /month, so the price point was one year of rental cost or less (for me)…I compared the new Legacy with the older, used rental my child was using, and the Legacy was as good or better in all ways I could find (the pads, the keys, the mouthpiece, the bell) Well, I sent my son to school with it and the Band Director approved it! And she even swapped out her mouth piece and played it for a while… SO… Great Product, Great Buy and Thank You!

Band teacher was impressed, loved the soft case. He said the quality is good. This is my daughters first instrument that was not rented. She is in the fifth grade.