Recently I bought a new sax. I had deliberated a long time, because I've owned a few saxes over the past few years, and haven't really got along with most of them.
I have had:
a Taiwan-made soprano on hire purchase (you rent it and the money counts towards the purchase price if you decide to buy) from John Myatt, a specialist wind emporium in Hitchin, Hertfordshire that sadly closed down a few years ago. I cancelled the agreement and sent it back because the keywork wasn't great and I didn't really like the sound.
a Chinese-made tenor from the UK website Gear4Music that was ridiculously cheap at £259 on offer. I had a bit of fun with it in a band called Blue47, which also featured
@steevc, among other people. We didn't last long -- I think we spent more time debating the band's name than we did actually playing together -- but I think we nailed Baker Street on a couple of occasions 😀. I still have that horn, but I find it very heavy, and I'm not happy with the sound I get out of it. Maybe someone better would make it sing, but I haven't managed it.
a Chinese-made alto, also from Gear4Music that I sent back after a week for a refund, because I couldn't be bothered with the fact that it's in Eb. I knew this before I bought it, but I had underestimated what a pain it would be in real life. I played a single rendition of Smooth Operator at a jam session, and that was enough for me. Back it went, because I couldn't see myself using it very often.
this horn.
Well, this horn is from Thomann. It's their C Melody saxophone, which some people like to call a C Tenor. It's a bit bigger than an alto and a bit smaller than a tenor. It has the depth and power of the tenor without its sheer volume, not to mention the back strain. These instruments were hugely popular during the first half of the 20th century, when people wanted them to play along with their friends. Thankfully, playing along with your friends is still a thing, and it's still a good reason to get a concert-pitch instrument (which means it's tuned in the key of C). I already have a clarinet in C, which is very handy for jamming without transposing from the more common Bb*. And this one's shiny and silver, like many of the old horns were. There were a couple of vintage horns made in the 20s and 30s available on a specialist website, but I wanted the protection of a guarantee and something made from modern materials, so eventually, after a lot of humming and hawing, I got their horn.
I'm very happy with it. I play it with the Yamaha alto mouthpiece that was left redundant when I sent that instrument back, which gives it a silvery, reedy tone compared with the stock mouthpiece or the tenor Yamaha. The tone sounds warmer and a bit vintage to my ear. I am hoping to start playing it a bit in our band, Swing 42, at gigs, starting by just playing the theme on it in one or two songs and adding songs as I get better at playing it. I took the horn on its first performance outing last weekend, to the local open mic. Many thanks to 
*For anyone who can't get their head around transposing instruments, some instruments are tuned in different keys, but they are still chromatic - ie you can play all the keys on them. It's not the same as whistles or single-key harmonicas, where you just pick the one that's tuned to a single key. The weird thing is that when you're playing a transposing instrument, let's say a trumpet, a tenor sax or a clarinet (all of which are often in Bb), you're not playing the notes you think you are. When you play a C, it comes out as a Bb for everyone else. So these instruments all have to have different music from the other instruments. That's a bit of a headache if you're looking to do impromptu jamming and you don't know how to play everything in strange keys. If everyone else is playing in C, I would have to play in D on a Bb clarinet, which has slightly more complex fingering patterns. And if they were in D, I'd be forced into E, with four sharps, which I might not be used to playing in very often. The professionals can play in all the keys, but for someone who didn't go to conservatoire, that's why the C sax is a breeze. I can just play straight off the same music as everyone else. Yay!