Customer Reviews

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These may well be my favorite mallets now. They're different enough that I thought I should try them, and I also have a lot of respect for Kevin Bobo. But much to my surprise, in spite of how unconventional they are in shape and weight balance, they work really well across the keyboard and with different techniques and strike velocities. If one plays a dynamic passage (even if on just one note), the timbre stays consistent from soft to loud. Perhaps even more so than other mallets.

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Great response upon impact. Best Friends Forever ;-).

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Another pair of amazing mallets by the talented Kevin Bobo. I have used and heard this mallets multiple times and I always enjoy them. The feel of the mallets is really nice and the consistency in sound is great in all dynamic levels. Combined with the other mallets from this series, you can expect a great sound for most any piece.

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These mallets are fantastic, the KB14's are an extremely versatile mallet. They are weighted enough so that the the full volume of the marimba can be obtained with minimal effort. They take a little time to break in but once they are they sound amazing.

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The mallets that arrived in the package only contained one KB14 and 3 KB11's according to the imprint on the handle. They all look and sound the same, so i'm not sure whether I have all KB11's with one wrongly imprinted handle or all KB14's with 3 wrongly imprinted handles. Either way, I should have been informed if there was a change in the manufacturing that they ran out of handles imprinted with the right markings for the ones I ordered.

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The KB14 is not like most of Malletech's other mallets, in that it is heavier, more tightly wrapped, and more single-toned than the LS series, MB series, Concerto series, or even the ES series. Like other reviewers, I find them to be weighty, but certainly not unwieldy and definitely not heavier than most Marimba One mallets. The tone is round and warm, and they are a really ideal level of hardness--a true medium at soft levels, and articulate but never really harsh at loud levels. The very tightly-wrapped, thin yarn makes for a very audible contact sound, which is not characteristic of most Malletech mallets. This extra bite in combination with the added weight is especially useful for more aggressive, bold pieces, where articulation is necessary but a full tone is wanted as well--Libertango, Ilijas, Ewazen Concerto mov. 1, for instance. On the other hand, such a "tick" could be undesirable on mellower pieces. Overall, I'd say they are quite comparable to Marimba One's Double Helix series, right between the DH3 and DH4, in hardness, yarn type and tension, and weight. Recommended for brighter pieces where you want a strong sound.

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They're on the heavy side, but no where near "too-heavy." Very VERY versatile as far as register goes (can play well below the low A) and gets a big, fat, solid tone. There is nothing that I don't like about these mallets.

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