Ferron's book contains a lot of helpful general information for the novice who wants to begin to learn about the acoustics of the saxophone, but it also contains many errors and opinions not supported by acoustical science.

A good example is the illustrations of the sensitive harmonic positions in the neck on pages 19 and 106 that has been widely distributed by a well known saxophone repairman. An error in Ferron's mathematical computations make these illustrations worthless. It is simply not possible to have 4 octaves of node and/or antinode positions inside a tenor neck or 3 octaves in an alto neck.

Other examples of Ferron's misinformation include:
P. 38 - "Harder metal causes the pitch to rise, softer metal lowers it."

p. 25 - "Metal provides greater intertia to pressure inside the mouthpiece, which explains why some jazz players prefer it."

p. 102 - Concluding that the measured physical volume of the mouthpiece minus the part displaced by the neck should match the volume of the missing cone completely ignoring the "equivalent" volume which includes that added by the beating reed and the player's oral cavity.

p. 21 - "The height of a closed tone hole, depending on the raised part must be absolutely precise. Variations of a few hundredths of a millimeter can modify the filtering function, and are sufficient to make the difference between a good or mediocre instrument."

There is no such thing as a "filtering function" of a tonehole, either closed or open. One hundredth of a millimeter is 1/10 the thickness of a sheet of paper. There are tested and proven mathematical formulas by both Benade and Nederveen concerning the effects of height of both open and closed toneholes which show the above statement by Ferron to be completely ridiculous.

For those interested in learning more about woodwind acoustics, the Ferron book is a good place to start
but it cannot be considered an "authoritative source."

Benade's "Horns, Strings, and Harmony" is another excellent introduction to musical acoustics. For those who want to go to the next level Benade's "Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics" is an excellent resource which avoids the advanced math whenever possible. From there Nederveen's "Acoustical Aspects of Musical Instruments" goes to the next level, but is challenging to understand because of the mathematics involved

trovo il cabernet buonissimo ed a volte interessanti discussioni in rete.
Ho scritto "riportato" da Ernia ed Algola solo perchè nè Gianni Mimmo nè Filippo Bucci sono presenti ed hanno partecipato a questa discussione.
(peraltro stimo entrambi per competenza e professionalità).
Il discorso di Ferron che non conoscevo a quanto pare ha già suscitato notevoli consensi e critiche ed alcune delle obiezioni (se ho capito bene quanto sostenuto su questa corrispondenza di volume ) corrispondono a quanto ad esempio evidenziava Il Nero.
Le mie perplessità rimangono tutte ma non escludo neanche che sia un mio limite di comprensione.
(sarebbe utile leggere "esattamente "quello che dice Ferron , perchè basta poco per prendere lucciole per lanterne.