I've been in discussion with John Everingham at Saunders recently about trying some Moeck Rottenburgh descants, after some of you recommended them and so did he. What I can't figure out is the different woods labelled 'Rosewood', in Moeck's terms meaning tulipwood, not palisander which is a different wood in the series. What are people's experiences of those? Only those woods please? The other one I was considering was ebony, and he doesn't stock olivewood apparently.

Not specific to those woods particularly but you might find some useful starting points in this thread and this thread - later posts in 2nd thread especially there's some talk about some of the qualities of different woods.

HTH a little.

I thought I'd seen rosewood and palisander used sort of interchangeably - ones which used to be called rosewood now being called palisander. Tulipwood is definitely different - a most attention-seeking red wood with a crazy stripe to it - rosewood/palisander being a darker brown and more discreet in its markings. Both woods can cause dermatitis, so if you have a trial of instruments made of these, give them a few days to be sure you're not allergic. (Ditto ebony - other woods as well, but these are known to be more problematic than the others).

Both can sound very lovely - in fact, Neil, the student with which we've played trios now has a rosewood instrument, and it has a great tone.

Thanks Sarah and anacrusis (I assume you mean Moeck's 'rosewood', aka tulip)? I remember those threads now, some good advice.

Will report back when I get the recorders.