It is a good quality conservatory/college level flute, but nothing fancy. Its best features are its tone and key action. The tone is excellent and the key action is durable, smooth and fast. Its weak point is its scale (intonation). It has typical old scale intonation, meaning: The lowest notes (E, D, C, B) tend flat. C# is sharp, E2 and F2 are flat, E3 is sharp, etc. The above notes are only off by a few cents each - it is not hard to play in tune. Its C to Eb key distance is the same as a Cooper scale: 256mm. But it's not a Cooper scale instrument. It seems to use Gemeinhardt's own unique scale. It is better than an old scale flute but not as even as Cooper.

I tried several different headjoints for it and bought a Jupiter D4 18kgp. It was a nice quality headjoint but I just didn't get the sound I really wanted out of it. It had a brassy, modern in-your-face kind of sound. Lots of sizzle, but too much edge. Intonation was all over the place and bottom register was anemic - fast, easy response but no power or resonance. After several years I finally gave up in frustration and sold that headjoint.

Years later I tried it again with the full set of Gemeinhardt headjoints. Once again, after a few months I was back to the original headjoint that came with this flute from the factory. This is the one I'll be keeping until I (eventually, someday) replace this flute. One thing I learned from all this experience: headjoints are not the magic remedy to tone. 95% of your tone is defined by how you blow and to some extent your immutable physical characteristics.

I had this flute tuned twice by David Colvig from San Francisco. Most recently, about 10 years ago and it still plays perfectly - no leaks, no changes to key regulation, etc. This is a really solid flute that holds up over time.

I know lots of flutists bash Gemeinhardt flutes - but why? The only thing that bugs me about my 3SB is its scale. The build quality, tone and key work are great. Over the years I have played Powells, Haynes, Lunn and Eppler, so while I am not a pro, I am an experienced amateur with at least some perspective. Sure they are better instruments - at 5-10 times the cost. But going beyond their superior craftsmanship, how much better are they in practical terms? The main differences are the scale, tone and ease of play. But a good scale can be had on any modern flute - one doesn't have to pay thousands for that. So the only real difference is the tone and ease of play.

I would like to get a flute with a more modern Cooper (or similar) scale. But is it worth upgrading? Not really. It doesn't bug me enough to make it worth spending several thousand dollars. Sure I could get a modern student flute with a better scale for cheap. But it wouldn't match the wonderful tone and key action of my 3SB. I've thought about getting a midrange flute body alone and using my 3SB headjoints. But I have found that a flute and headjoint tend to work together as a system. I've tried mixing headjoints and flutes and just never got a good result from it.

Overall, I give my 3SB 8 of 10 stars for quality, durability, tone and ease of play, where custom professional flutes would be 9s and 10s. Considering they cost 5-10x as much, my 3SB gets a "10" in value.