I saw the post below about the Hohner Cajun IV iPad app. But what about the instrument itself? I have not heard of if before now. Anyone know anything about it? I guess it is made in China (boo). I saw something that said Italian reeds?!?!?!? Really? The cost seems to be at least double or triple an Arriette. (List price is well over $1000).

I wonder about the quality, consistency of build, tuning... These have all been bugaboos with the crappy Arriettes, which I would NEVER recommend to anyone.

Maybe it is on par with the HA-114, which has been a decent enough beginner box.

They call it Cajun, but have they made any attempt to follow the norms for Cajun tuning (dry, just tuned)? Or are they continuing to be oblivious to the tastes of the people they are trying to sell the thing to?

The chassis appears to be on par with the previous model.

I do not see the price increase because of machine made grade of Italian reeds.

What do you mean by previous model? The Arriette or the HA-114?

Given the price point, it seems Hohner is positioning it at the HA-114 level.

I had bought one, with every intention on sending it back, even before I got it. I was just anxious to see how sh*tty it actually was. And man, that thing is sh*tty. Gobbles air, is quiet as a mouse, and the tuning was completely out of whack. It's an over glorified Arriette. Hahahah, and the box it comes in resembles something from Toys 'R' Us. Piece of dung.

Ok, bad quality. No doubt.
But doesn't the fact that they're making them show some kind of demand from people learning cajun music? That's the only good possible point here.
I do alot on a regular basis to foster enthusiasm for Cajun music (hope everybody else here does too) and maybe the new guys who are buying these might stick with it long enough to upgrade to a real Cadien built box just like I did?
I knew I wanted to keep learning and went from an Ariette to a Martin. From the bottom- all the way to the top in one move. BAM! The Ariette was only a cheap stepping stone.....a foot in the door.
Now I play only slightly worse than Jerry Moody!

That's a good point point, but the thing ia over priced, by four hundred dollars. They're selling for $685-$750. It's a ripoff.

Well, you could always buy the iPad version of the instrument for $2.99 :-)

Here's a live video of our local San Diego Cajun band "Billy Lee and the Swamp Critters" using the Hohner Cajun SqueezeBox app, based on sampled sounds of the LMH and LMMH reed sets of the Cajun IV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ39UfdVWuI&feature=youtu.be

I have a Hohner Cajun IV, the one I used to sample for the app. It seems quite nicely built, but since I'm a traditional Irish player, and not a Cajun player I can't compare it to anything except my Saltarelle Irish Bouebe and a restored 1930s 2-row.

If there are any questions I can answer about it, please let me know. The app sounds in the videos pretty much match the LMMH reed sounds of the real instrument, perhaps I could do a demo video showing an A/B comparison of the real one with the app.

Cheers and thanks,

Michael