Interesting. Are you sure it's the Noyeks that make the horn so loud? Is it possible to play the horn softly? Funny. You put top shelf resos on your bottom shelf horn. Anything for fun, right? If loud is your game, have you tried Vandoren's Jumbo Java mpc yet? Try out an A55 or larger sometime. They'll kick you out of the stadium... I'm trying out the SaxGourmet pads on my 12M right now. I'm fitting them with flat resos in the spirit of Conn reso-pads. The SG pads are decent to work with. A very consistent finish. Nice leather that's not too thin. It will be nice not to have to look at moisture stains down the road as they are black pads.

Yeah, its definately the noyeks, I can still play softly, but not as much as I used to be able to, I used to be able to do ppp, but now I can only do about p, or mp depending on conditions that I am not quite sure of yet. Not funny, I put noyeks on my AS300 for pep band stuff, it needed new pads and so I might as well put in good resos too. The resos were only 40 bucks more with the set of jim schmidt pads. (those might contribute too.) I didn't want to repad the thing ever again so I put in permanent pads. The pads were 150 so whats another 40 bucks? And noyeks are far from top shelf anyways, and the AS300 is quite the bottom either. If loud was my game (which it isn't, its legit, loud is only for pep band.) I wouldn't buy a substandard piece, I would not buy anything less than a 110/0. What I use now is a modded meyer with a step baffle that has a minimum dynamic of about mf, and a max on that sax of several F's.

I'm about to aquire a YAS-23 for very little money. I may try my hand in repadding it myself and I've been considering Noyeks.

Good for you! Have you done a repad before? There's no better way to get familiar with and appreciate the complexities of a saxophone than going through a full repad job yourself.