A new flute?

The photo is of Doppy, my cat. Poor Doppy (named after the Doppler brothers) is poorly. We had to take her to see the vet this morning. We really don't like going to the vets. I was quite stressed out and I don't get stressed over much.  She's lost over 25% of her body weight. That's not good. We thought we might not bring her home, but the vet gave her a couple of injections and we've to see how she goes. As you can see, she is snuggled down in bed making the most of it.

I had been really looking forward to the weekend. We've got the fair on our park again and it's fireworks tonight. I love fireworks and over the last few days I've been trying new flutes. It's excting! I've narrowed the field down to two. They are very similar, but also very different and I just don't know which one I want!

I'll tell you where I'm at so far and maybe you can help. Let's call them Flute A and Flute B. They both have open holes, low B footjoint, in line G (my hand prefers the in line G so on that one I'm very happy).

Both of them have wonderful, light keywork. It is an absolute joy to play them. It's probably the sound that is the main difference. Flute A is very quick to respond, it has a big open sound where flute B is more resonant and has a bigger tone colour range. One both flutes, the tone is good throughout the octaves, but the third octave is particularly 'sweet' and easy. The lowest notes on Flute A seem to need 'pushing', but maybe that's just me today.

Tuning is interesting.  I've had these flutes for 3 days now - aren't I lucky? or should I say, aren't we all lucky in the flute world to have these amazing flute shops who will happily let serious potential buyers take flutes home to try just for the cost of the insurance? It's so much nicer to try a flute in a room that you are familiar with and with all your music available to play - one the first day I noticed I was playing the B and C flat. The second day I was blowing them sharp and today they are bang in tune. That suggests to me that the scale is slightly different to on my own flute. I think it is quite amazing how quickly the brain and body adjust to such challenges. I've gone back to my own flute and I'm still playing those notes in tune. I suppose it's a bit like when you play different recorders, you seem to automatically know which fingerings to use.

I'm having a lovely time playing these flutes, playing through pieces I haven't seen for years and seeing how much I can get out of each instrument. I love them both! What do I do? Go for the one with the big, easy sound (Flute A) or the softer, more subtle one (Flute B)?