Hilary's meys are not that brilliant, but they can be made to work. I've got one (ana mey, the larger size); the bore was very rough and I needed to sand and oil it repeatedly. They are finished with some kind of very shiny synthetic varnish which doesn't appeal to me. I've got a much older one which works better, also a duduk and a balaban which I got in Istanbul (lovely dark plumwood). The most helpful and knowledgeable place for them I've found is the Zeynel Abidin Cumbus shop at Unkapani in Istanbul (see my cumbus page) but that was in person, what they'd be like by mail and in English I have no idea.

I haven't looked that hard at the EBay stuff - most Middle Eastern instruments are overpriced when sold that way.

Of all the instruments in this family the balaban is the one I like the most - look for Alihan Samedov on YouTube. I think he's recently published a book about it (in Azeri, I guess, I saw the blurb on an Azeri page) but I haven't seen it.