Testing the Benz-Tec Digital Reed Tester: A Clarinetist’s Honest Review

What Does This Device Do?

In essence, the Benz-Tec Digital Reed Tester allows you to measure and compare the strength of your reeds. Rather than relying on vague numbers or a subjective “feel,” it provides a reading on a 100-point scale, offering a level of precision that typical manufacturer ratings don’t usually hit.

Using the Device

Setting up and using the Reed Tester is incredibly straightforward, thanks to Benz-Tec’s minimalistic manual, which boils down to three steps:

• Start
• Place
• Read

That’s it! It’s user-friendly and works right out of the box. 

The device calculates reed strength by measuring the force needed to bend the tip until it touches a flat surface. This gives you quick and clear results.

Consistency and Accuracy

The first thing I was eager to test was the device’s consistency. It turns out that as long as you push the reed to the very end of the black slot, it’s impressively reliable, with readings deviating by only 0.0 to 0.1.

For a more realistic test, I tried measuring reeds in different conditions: wet versus dry. A wet reed tends to score about 0.8 to 1.0 lower than a dry one. When the reed is dry, the readings closely align with the “official” strength values from the manufacturer - a big plus in my book!

Does the Testing Process Affect the Reed?

After running some tests, I noticed a slight feeling that maybe, just maybe, bending the reed repeatedly might be altering its feel. Naturally, I wanted to investigate further. My plan was to measure the strength of 10 reeds each about ten times to see if the readings changed over time.

But then, a snag: the device suddenly started displaying readings between 0.0 and 0.5, no matter the reed. After multiple resets and retries, I realized it had to go back for repairs or replacement. Hopefully, I’ll have an update on this issue soon!

In the meantime, there’s one last experiment I can try. If the testing process does warp the reed, it should be visible on a flat surface. I’ve captured a video of this test, so take a look and decide for yourself!

If upon multiple restarting, the device does not read zero, the method to reset it is: while on, press and hold down the on/off button until the numbers increase to a stable high value. This was about 12.2 in his case. Then after turning off and on it again, it reads zero. After that he has found the device to seem to be accurate and gave reproducible results.

More Data on Reed Testing

As for Vandoren Traditional reeds, David tested two boxes of strength 4 reeds. For these, dry and wet, he obtained:

Please let us know in the comments below if you have any experience with this reed tester!