Soaking a reed in the mouth is unacceptable. It will never produce good vibrations.

I’ve never really thought about the vibrations. I just use water because we have all sorts of yucky things in our mouths and who wants to put saliva in a reed when you don’t have to. They’ll be in the mouth soon enough! I also don’t think about soaking so much as letting the reed take a little dip. I will dip the reed in water, take it out and let it sit and think about life for a short while. No need to drown the poor thing! ;-)