Selmer finally had to turn around in the early 80's, because they were facing way too much competition from Yamaha and other companies. So, they came out with a better saxophone: the Super 80.

These horns were produced in three series, with the series II and III being produced still, along with a couple subsets (e.g. the "Jubilee", etc.)

The series I horns were OK, unfortunately, Yamaha's Custom models were much better copies of the Mark VI than Selmer's S80's -- and they're cheaper, too. The II's and III's definitely much better and more VI like, until the Reference 54 series.

There are lots of mechanical innovations in the S80 series -- the most obvious is probably the detachable neck for the S80III sopranos (directly from the influence of Yamaha). The Harmonic horns have significant neck modifications.

Some VI's were still being produced when the S80 came out, notably the sopranos, baritones and basses (to approximately s/n 365000) and the sopranino (to approximately s/n 378000).