Theo Wanne Shakti alto saxophone

Origin: Taiwan
Guide price: £1500 approx. when new
Weight: 2.48kg
Date of manufacture: 2018 (approx.)
Date reviewed: January 2026

Differently good

Yep, it's another 'Boutweaqued' horn bearing a well-known name. Theo Wanne carries an impressive reputation as a mouthpiece maker, so it's not all that surprising that moving into retailing his own-brand saxes seemed like a good way to leverage that reputation. There were three models made, as far as I know; the high end Narayan and Mantra models and this one - the intermediate-quality Shakti. There's plenty of chatter out there about the high end models but not so much about the budget model, which seems to have slipped under the radar somewhat. Understandable perhaps - it's a very competitive segment of the marketplace and lower-priced horns tend not to generate as much discussion as more expensive models.
I'll confess that this is about all I know of these horns; in fact this is the first time I've ever seen one. As you might suppose, there aren't that many of them around (at least in the UK), and some of this will be down to a relatively short (in industry terms) production run of around twenty or so years.

As far as I know, again, the Wanne horns were mostly manufactured in Taiwan to Theo's specifications and thereafter shipped to the States where other bespoke parts were made and added to the horns and suitable tweaks applied.
Such a practice makes sense for a high-end product but, realistically, the retail price of an intermediate horn really doesn't leave a lot of room for the expensive process of assembly and tweakery....so I'm inclined to think that the Shakti may well have been an off-the-peg design with some bespoke bling. Happy to be proved wrong though.

Anyway, enough speculation - let's get down to the stuff that's not up for debate.

The construction is single pillar (post to body) with a few small plates for the smaller keys. You get plain drawn toneholes, a detachable bell with a rather 'unique' bell brace, the signature Wanne triple sling ring, adjustable bumper felts, an adjustable metal thumb hook and a domed metal thumb rest - all finished in a rather nice deep gold 'vintage lacquer with some nice engraving cut through it which extends down onto the bottom bow. The bell is 5 1/4" (134mm) across the rim, which is pretty large for an alto but somehow it looks quite well proportioned.

You get a full set of real mother of pearl touches which have a slightly concave profile, with a slightly domed pearl for the Bis Bb and flat ovals on the G# and side F# touchpieces.
Finishing up the body features is a detachable semicircular compound bell key pillar.

One of the things you don't get with this horn is a trouser guard - because the bell brace runs down the body where the guard would usually sit.
This is one of the horn's 'distinctive' features. I'll admit that it looks kinda cool - but from a technical point of view the bell brace has to perform a very important function which is, as the name suggests, to brace the bell.
This brace is, essentially, a two-point job. The lower mount point further down the body contributes little or nothing to the stiffness and the robustness of the bell relies pretty much entirely on a single piece of bar.

Yes, there'll be some extra stiffness at the point where the bar coming off the middle mount runs down towards the lower one but this will do nothing for the section of bar that runs up to the bell mount.
Sure, the bell doesn't wobble (much) when you apply some sideways force to it - but if the horn hits the deck there are going to be tears before bedtime. On the plus side if the brace ends up getting bent it'll be a relatively easy job to straighten it out again - so there is that.

Another distinctive feature is the brace on the crook. I'll come right out and say it - I don't like this type of brace at all.
This style of open brace was commonly fitted to vintage horns - and one of the biggest problems with the design is that any downward force that's applied to the crook, whether that be by clumsy handling or a drop, gets shunted to the lower mount...and with such a small surface area in play the crook tube will often fold under the pressure. Yep, it can occur with the more modern plate-type braces but it takes one hell of a whack to make it happen.
An open brace also complicates one of the most common crook problems, which is pull-down. On a modern horn you can often fix pull-down by (sort of) merely pulling the crook back up; the stiffness of the brace plate will go quite some way to bringing the crook tube back into round. With the open brace it's a lot trickier (it often pops off), and you may well have to deal with a dent at the lower end.
So yeah - again - it looks cool but it's less than ideal in mechanical terms.
If you're looking to buy one of these horns on the secondhand market I'd strongly advise checking these bespoke braces for signs of body tube damage and/or misalignment. If all is well then you're good to go...but just go carefully, OK?

And now it's time we talked about the toneholes.
I'll be honest - I've seen so many boutweaqued horns that have been badly let down by the state of the toneholes that I really was expecting the worst. Especially at the asking price. I mean, some corners have to be cut, right?
But blow me down if I didn't spot some evidence that the toneholes had been tweaked. And no, not by another repairer. This horn's had nothing done to it other than minor servicing. In fact I allowed myself a small glimmer of hope that they might be pretty flat.
I was not disappointed. Let's put it this way; I spent about 15 minutes checking them and making a few small tweaks here and there. On many horns I can spend that amount of time on a single tonehole.
Full marks and then some. Very impressed. If all the Shatkis have toneholes like this it really does give them a significant advantage at the prices you'll likely be paying for them.

Let's move on to the action - and it's here where I found a couple of disappointments.

The key fit on the palm and side keys was very poor indeed. This was down to a combination of undersized rod screws and overdrilled pillars rather than wear and tear.
The fitted rod screw measured out at 2.48mm - the next standard size up would have been 2.51mm but I was able to go to the next step up of 2.56mm to get a good, snug fit.
Rather than bugger about trying to swedge the key barrels down and crimp the pillars I decided the better option would be to knock up some new rod screws.
I know the difference of 0.08mm doesn't sound like a lot but you can see how such a small amount of play translates to quite a lot of movement at the pad - and it's the sort of play I'd only expect to see on horn after it's had a good few years of hard use....which this horn has very much not had.

The key fit on the main stack was variable - OK in some places, poor in others. Certainly not up to the standard of, say, a Yamaha 278, but nothing that couldn't be sorted with a bit of swedging here and there. And then we come to the point screws. This is definitely where the money runs out because the horn is fitted with parallel points. Yep, they have a point on them but the holes in the barrels are drilled too deep for them to make any contact - so they're just hanging in mid-air and are thus completely ineffectual.

All is not lost, however. What this type of point screw relies on is that the diameter of the hole drilled in the key barrel is a close fit for the diameter of the shaft of the screw's tip - and, much to my surprise, I found this to be just so. Which was nice.
For sure, at some point in time the key barrels are going to wear - leaving the point screw all out of options, and this'll mean having someone take up the wear rather than merely adjusting the screws. There are various methods of doing this, some more cost-effective (AKA cheaper) than others.

The octave mech is a bog-standard swivel mech. Nothing much to report here; it's been nicely made and assembled.

The octave key touchpiece is sculpted around the rather large and comfortable thumb rest as well as being slightly dished. I like this design - it gives the key a rather nice feel and offers quite a lot of scope for adjustment to suit whatever size thumb you were born with.

As for the rest of the action it's all quite positive.
There are simple fork and pin connectors for the side keys; uncomplicated, efficient and reliable. You get the usual Bis Bb, G# and low B to C# trio of adjusters - but no regulation or height adjusters, which is a bit of a shame...but then these things cost money.
And as per most modern horns these days there's a tilting bell key table, and all of the action is powered by a set of blued steel springs.
The pads were of decent quality and looked to have been quite well set.

And that leaves just one last feature to discuss, which is the triple sling ring.
This is not a new idea. It pops up on certain King and B&S models - and from time-to-time a modern horn (such as this one) adopts it as a feature.
However, I think it's very fair to say that no-one else has done it with quite as much style as Theo Wanne. I mean, just look at it! There's no mucking about there!
But is it worth it? That's a tricky one.
I've spent a lot of time moving sling rings around for other players - but here's the thing...when I'm asked to move a sling ring down (rarely up) I'm also usually asked to move it slightly off-centre. I haven't personally owned a horn where I've felt it necessary to move the stock ring.
It's often said (and I've said it myself) that having sling rings at different heights gives you more flexibility when either standing or sitting to play. I'm sure that it does; but then again I cut my sax teeth playing lead alto and baritone (vintage baris, no less) in a big band and never once felt the need to go fiddling with the sling ring. So I would say that it's one of those gadgets you either need or you don't. But it may also be true to say that you might not know you need it until you try it!
Realistically it's not going to add a great deal to the price of the horn, so why not? Looks cool...and maybe that's good enough.

Are any of these unique features going to make a different to the sonic qualities of this horn? Nahh, but there's nowt wrong with a bit of bling just as long as it doesn't compromise mechanical integrity.

Under the fingers the Wanne feels confident and responsive (as least after the key wobbles had been sorted). For the most part it's a generic action, so it's always going to be 'of a standard', but it's clear that some attention to detail has been given in putting this horn together. And the remarkably flat toneholes give the action (and the tone) just that little bit of extra 'pop'.
Assuming you have reasonably standard-sized hand you're not going to run into any issues - especially with the front top F key, which sports an angled teardrop touchpiece.

Tonewise it's...nice. When this horn came in for a service I gave it a quick blow just to suss out what sort of character it had, and my assessment of it was that it was 'jolly'.
I'd say that it sort of veers slightly towards a darker tone for an alto - but only just, and it's perhaps the depth of the bell notes that add to that perception.
It's also quite a powerful horn. I hesitate to call it loud, rather it's quite responsive and eager - and relatively free-blowing. For the most part it's even-toned across the range - with the lowest notes having a bit more oomph to them - but I found a the top C can feel a bit pinched if you're giving it some welly and there's a touch of shading on the mid/low D. Nothing dealbreaking, and probably quite mouthpiece dependent - and quite likely to disappear once you've got your embouchure trained.
And yeah, it's fun to play. It's got some character. I liked it.

What I liked even more was the price. The client bought it new back in the day and the asking price really surprised me (perhaps it was on sale?). You'll always pay more for a boutique horn if it's been blinged up - and yeah, if you're a canny buyer you can sometimes find much the same basic horn under a different label. But in some ways it's bit like picking leather seats over cloth for your new car; you don't really need them, they cost a bit more...but it's a bit of luxury that you don't mind paying for.
Sure, I found some build quality issues but the overall package was quite impressive. It's a bit quirky, certainly different, undoubtedly quite flashy but, most importantly, it's a really nice blow. I'd be inclined to say that it represents a pretty good deal on the secondhand market if you're looking for something a little bit different without breaking the bank. Yep, it would be worth spending a bit more to have those build issues sorted but after that you've got yourself a nifty and reasonably rare setup.

You want comparisons? In terms of bling there's very little out there that hits the mark at a reasonable price - but tonally I'd look to the new TJ Evo. It has that 'dark' thing going on. As does the Holton Collegiate 666 - which also has the advantage of looking quite snazzy.