Lee Oskar Harmonica, Key of C, Major Diatonic

I've recently taken up playing harmonica. Ive bought Fender, Honer and Lee Oskar harps to test out which one I like best. The Lee Oskar C Diatonic was by far the best. Here are my reasons why: 1) Quality for value: The $10 fender harmonica sounded terrible and were off pitch. The Honer harmonica had a good sound but when it came to voicing the higher octave (holes 7-10) the voicing of the notes was very difficult with my spotty technique. The Lee Oskar has great sound is is more forgiving. I'm mostly focusing on position and bending right now so being able to voice notes in the higher octave more easily makes practicing songs much less frustrating. Of course, you'll want to be able to play on any harp so keep technique in mind. 2) Price over time: Over time your brass reeds will wear and corrode making them impossible to play. Lee Oskar sells replacement reeds so you don't need to replace the entire harp. Over time this can save money, especially if your trying to start this hobby on a tight budget. 3) Build Quality: Out of the 3 harps i purchase, the Lee Oskar feels more robust. I also love the standard case it comes in it can interlock with other Lee Oskar Harp cases and opens from the top. You can sense the thoughtfulness in the design.

I really like the sound, timbre or tone of the Lee Oscar Harmonicas. Very easy to play, and bending is not too difficult to do, but I am still very much a beginner or a little better of a player at this point. I have never had Oscar jam reeds, or have any hole to not produce musical notes, ever. The Oscars I have, always just play beautifully, no matter how much i play them, or how long they sit. My $20 dollar honer from china, I can't make this boast, nor my Japanese Manjis, although with a bit of a warm up the Suzuki Manjis open up and are playable without much delay. If I was going to recommend a beginner harmonica, it would be a Lee Oscar, or a Honer Special 20, if you were just wanting 1/ to test out harmonica and see if you liked it, and 2/ wanted to get a good quality harp to start, that could be used for a couple three years until you were an advanced intermediate or an intermediate advanced harp player. If you know in your heart that you want to play harp, and you think you might want to just buy one harp, only, I would suggest the Honer Crossover, as it can be used for the greatest range of styles: Blues, Country, Jazz, Rock, Folk. Or I would suggest the Lee Oscar or the Special 20, as they both play really easy, sound really good, and are not too difficult to bend notes on.

It's the first harmonica I've ever purchased. I've played guitar 40+ years. It's a great instrument to get started with. Good quality yet not super expensive.

I like the sound, and this is my first Harmonic. Hope I can learn it well

Excellent quality. Make sure it's something that you want and not something that's just gonna take up space later because you feel like getting a new instrument. But it's affordable in the long run if it's something you're going to play

Love it. Sounds good. Seems good quality

This is one of my favorite diatonic harmonicas, mainly because it doesn't leak like a sieve. I can't say if it's a great harmonica because I'm certainly not a great player. It may be tremendous, I honestly am not qualified to say. But it's well designed and built, easy to play without excessive huffing & puffing, and hasn't broken yet. By comparison, all the Hohners I've bought are horrible leakers. Special 20, Blues Harp, Big River, and of course the execrable Bluesband. Just awful. This is for recent (late 2015-early 2016) production; I don't know how they performed in the past. All Chinese harmonicas I've owned so far, including those sold as Hohners or Suzukis, are basically scrap metal, and not just because they're Chinese; I have a Chinese saxophone which is the cat's meow, a pile of rather good Chinese ukuleles, a Chinese violin which ain't half bad (and at a steal of a price), and a Chinese clarinet which ... well, let's just say she looks gorgeous. But the harmonicas are just an insult. My best harmonicas to date are the Lee Oskar, the Seydel Blues Session and several Suzukis - Bluesmaster, Promaster, and possibly the Manji. None of these are terribly cheap - as of this writing, they're priced from about $34 to $41 - but they're far less frustrating for beginners than the leaky ones from China or from Hohner.

Great tone and volume.