Mr.Gumby wrote:
The point Richard is making, and one I would make myself, is that the 'traditional' whistle, Generation, Feadog, Oak, is markedly more agile, flexible, less air-consuming than virtually all of the modern 'designer' whisltes. Even while the Killarney and Sindt come close, they still want that little bit more effort (it depends a bit on the key and possibly the individual whistle). Ultimately they offer a greater ease of playing.
You need to try a Carbony then. They are my favourite among the more expensive whistles I have played so far. I love how the traditional whistles play (after all, I exclusively played a Gen C for 30 years - but I didn't practice much back in the day and also didn't play ITM) but I don't like the lottery involved. Till I found a modern Generation that played well I had to buy quite a bunch of them.
The Carbonys play much like the tradtitional whistles except that they have impeccable tuning across the octave, a spot-on cross-fingered C nat and are simply the best whistles I played so far (still -- that magic of a good red-top Generation -- yummie...). Another brand of whistles that plays very much like a traditional whistle (including the breathy sound) are TWZ (but there are some mixed opinions online -- I have three of their whistles and they all play great).
I never tried any wooden whistles btw -- I prefer the low maintenance of plastic/metal.
On a sidenote -- I am not a fan of the Killarney. Mine lacks dynamics (you simply blast into them, that's probably why they are often recommended for beginners who lack breath control) and the first octave, especially the bell note is weaker than on any of my cheapos (Oak, Gen, Feadóg, Waltons, etc). Maybe I just got a "Monday whistle" but it really doesn't sound very nice. My vintage Generation (and even some of the newer ones) far outperforms my Killarney. But I haven't given up on them yet. I am thinking about getting a 2nd one to see if it performs better than the one I have. Yes, I am a hoarder but I try to improve my playing along with buying new whistles

. I don't think a maker will complain if he has a waiting list -- whistle making will not make people filthy rich and if the lists are so long -- more people should make whistles. There should be a whistle out there for everyone. So far I haven't heard people complain "I wanna learn the whistle but I can't buy one, some stupid collectors keep buying them all". In fact, I only heard about the long waiting list of John Sindt -- but some people didn't have to wait at all to get one. Others waited for years.