Which recorder to buy for a 6-year-old boy? With nice high quality sound.

You can get part-sized clarinets these days. If he learns that, then it'll be easy to swap to a sax, which is cool. Best to wait until he has all his front teeth though.

I'm a recorder player, the kids are excellent recorder players and we all have a heavy early music interest.

THis:

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Yamaha-Descant-recorder-Blue-/360399100899?pt=UK_Woodwind_Instruments&hash=item53e975dbe3

and it's mates in different colours (including the boring black/cream) are thought to be the best instruments for the money and easily OK to grade 4-5 or higher. THey are lovely to play and tuning is good and consistent within the instrument and between instruments because the manufacture is very consistent.

I started with Aulos but not they aren't particularly well regarded.

DH teaches music at school and he has a yamaha descant I got from ebay just like this except his was bought from some clever person who has mixed up 3 recorders and so he has a tri colour one LOL

I was going to suggest Aulos (or Yamaha) before even opening your link.

You need to avoid gimmicky garish-coloured or brightly painted one's (often found in general toy catalogues) as the quail is variable. Wooden ones are much more expensive, and best to wait to see how well he gets on with it.

It definitely has to be a descant, BTW. If he is keen, then you get the others later. I started with descant and added tenor, and sopranino and treble. Avoid the last two for a beginner as they are in a different key and require different fingering; tenor will probably be too big until the later primary years.

I'd buy an Aulos. They're decent recorders, for plastic. I learnt on them, and am currently teaching dd on one, and it sounds really sweet. If you want a really nice school recorder when he gets better, though, try a Moeck Flauto 1 (maple wood body, plastic top joint). Gorgeous mellow sound. But, it's 30-odd quid, so prob a bit much for a complete beginner.

Aulos is the most popular brand with the schools, or the Yamaha 24subuk. To be honest, I would ask the music teacher at school as they are normally asked to buy the same recorder, for tuning purposes.

That's a perfectly good one.

If he likes it, upgrade to a wooden one - but I really wouldn't do that until he's a bit older (or perhaps he doesn't lose/break stuff as often as mine do).