I am picking up after a break in playing, and I did not find the currently available cane reeds to be as consistent as in the ancient past (played on V12’s forever). I was pleasantly impressed when I used the Legere, as I had always been a skeptic about synthetic reeds (back from the days of “plastic” reeds). I’ve filled out my reed holder with a few more, and whenever these do wear out, I will likely buy some more. I’ve also recently tried a few other synthetic brands for comparison, but they haven’t had quite the right feel. However, Legere reeds play like old-school broken-in cane reeds, right out of the box.