I've had a few "soft" cases in the past, but never felt like they'd do a sufficient job of protecting my sax—I ended up getting a contoured hard flight case for my tenor because of this, but the tradeoff is that it is heavy.My kiddo might be picking up alto this fall and both hard cases I have are heavy, bulky, and somewhat trashy, so I've been looking at something of a happy medium. This seemed to fit the bill so I decided to give this a try.It works really well and both altos I tried fit snugly within. Inside is a clever pouch for the neck, which also serves as an internal stabilizer as well (see pictures). The case also has two external pockets for reeds, accessories, etc. Finally, it also has straps that can be connected either as a sling or as backpack straps.The only con—as others have mentioned—is that the zipper is a little difficult to open. Still, it's better than being too easy to open and I think the strap that connects both zippers has something to do with it, so I'm going to play around with it to see if I can make it work better.