Mistakes were made

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the long post, I was typing my thoughts out and this ended up way longer than I thought it would. I’m not sure if I’m looking for advice, support, or people calling me an idiot (which is totally fair).

To start, I am a hobbyist, I don’t play professionally, nor in a band except when a friend and I play 20-30 minutes of Christmas songs during his yearly Christmas party. We have done for about 3 years now. A few of us have tried doing a band, but with life, practice has not been as consistent as needed so the band has fizzled.

For history:

I played alto sax in school band for 3 years (1994-1996). In 2016 after a 30-year hiatus I decided to start playing alto sax again. I thought it would be a better use of my time than playing video games or watching tv for hours after work. I was playing alto for several years but I never developed the sound I envisioned on it. My teacher suggested trying tenor. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on one since I figured I’d go back to alto anyway. I ended up buying a Jody Blues on Amazon. All things considered, it wasn’t a terrible horn for $600. I ended up playing that one for about 3 years. In 2024, I inherited my FIL’s Martin tenor which was a huge step-up, but the ergonomics are less than ideal on that horn. I was playing that one with the intention on getting a horn that was mine.

I decided I should look for modern horn with better ergonomics. About a year ago, I was on the Sweetwater site window shopping and saw the Selmer Supreme 140^(th) limited edition black matte finish and fell in love instantly. Admittedly, I’m a sucker for black saxophones.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SETS94LTD25--selmer-paris-94-supreme-professional-tenor-saxophone-black-matte-finish-2025-limited-edition

I talked to my Sweetwater rep about coming out and playtesting a few horns before I purchased. During my conversation, I jokingly asked about the horn because paying that much money for a sax is crazy stupid if you don’t have stupid money or a pro musician. Sweetwater said the horns hadn’t come in yet but I could put my name on a reservation list. At first, I told them it was way too much money and way beyond my budget (completely true). Unfortunately, as weeks went on, since there would only be 300 tenors produced in the world, I started convincing myself that the horn could go up in value like the Mark 6 has and I would be kicking myself in 30 years that I had an opportunity to buy one and didn’t pull the trigger. I asked Sweetwater to add me to the list and was fully guaranteed I was under no obligation to purchase the horn.

Over the next 6 months, I had every intention to getting to Sweetwater to test horns, even Selmer Supreme’s to see if I really wanted to buy the limited edition. Life happened and I couldn’t make it out there. They called me in October to let me know the horn was in. I still had the opportunity to back out, but like a fool, I said yes I still want it. A few days later I had it.

It is a great horn, but there are definitely better things I could have done with $12,500 (buyers remorse I suppose)

This is my dilemma. For playing over the last 10 years, I’m significantly behind where I should be as a player and I still don’t love my sound. Most days I mainly think to myself “Why did I ever why did I want to do this?” So now I’m at a point where I don’t really know what to do. Practicing feels more like I have to do it, rather than I want to do it. I have thought about putting the sax down for some time, but now, quitting doesn’t feel like an option because I’d have this sax that would be collecting dust and I would have thrown $12,000 down the drain. Also, I doubt I’d be able to sell for anywhere close to what I purchased for.