{"id":2273,"date":"2017-06-06T07:17:22","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T10:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dylanradio.com\/?p=2273"},"modified":"2017-06-06T08:18:21","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T11:18:21","slug":"easttop-blues-harps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/easttop-blues-harps\/","title":{"rendered":"EastTop Blues Harps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2r1dmOd\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2274\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.dylanradio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Untitled-2-300x212.jpg\" alt=\"Untitled-2\" width=\"300\" height=\"212\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Untitled-2-300x212.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Untitled-2-768x544.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Untitled-2.jpg 890w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t normally do product endorsements, but this recent find is worth sharing. I play <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/leeoskar.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Lee Oskar<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.playhohner.com\/instruments\/harmonica\/diatonic-harmonicas\/progressive-series\/special-20-classic\/\" target=\"_blank\">Special 20<\/a><\/strong> harmonicas pretty exclusively, but at $60 a pop, I have to be a bit careful with them, so I&#8217;ve been on a lengthy, heartbreaking quest for a cheap alternative that I can beat up without going broke. Most of my cheap-experiments have been out of tune, losing air like crazy, or just plain miserable to play. Unsurprisingly, most of the cheapies are made in China, and every China-made harp has been utterly m<span class=\"text_exposed_show\">iserable&#8230;. until now.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text_exposed_show\">\n<p>The <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2r1dmOd\" target=\"_blank\">Easttop 008K Blues Harmonica<\/a><\/strong> is not only cheap, but it&#8217;s well made. My only concern was that the reed-plate isn&#8217;t recessed into the comb (which affect air-tightness), but they&#8217;ve compensated with additional reed-plate screws so it&#8217;s still remarkably air-tight. I thought the reed plate would be rough on the lips, but turns out it&#8217;s not too bad.\u00a0 Moreover, this cheap China harp came out of the box <strong>in tune<\/strong>, the reeds bend nicely, and it includes little a nice belt holster and cleaning cloth.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re new to harmonica, and just want something cheap to try and play along with Bob, please don&#8217;t buy that low-end Hohner or Swan crap. They&#8217;re going to give you the wrong impression of how it&#8217;s supposed to play &amp; sound. This <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2r1dmOd\" target=\"_blank\">Easttop harp<\/a> sound great, it&#8217;s a pleasure to honk on, and if you&#8217;re a seasoned harp player, it makes a great pocket-beater, or just a cheap alternative for a key you don&#8217;t regularly use in your spread.<\/p>\n<p>Easttop isn&#8217;t paying me to say this &#8211; I have no idea who they are anyway &#8211; but when I find a harp of this quality for $12, it&#8217;s my civic duty to share that info. I haven&#8217;t found it available at any of my usual online music-store haunts, but it&#8217;s available on <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2r1dmOd\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon <\/a><\/strong>and it shipped to me from China to Canada pretty darn fast.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2r1dmOd\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s a link to their listing on Amazon.com: http:\/\/amzn.to\/2r1dmOd<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t normally do product endorsements, but this recent find is worth sharing. I play Lee Oskar and Special 20 harmonicas pretty exclusively, but at $60 a pop, I have to be a bit careful with them, so I&#8217;ve been on a lengthy, heartbreaking quest for a cheap alternative that I can beat up without [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2273"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2277,"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions\/2277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dylanradio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}