I received the mandolele I bought on an eBay auction for $51 US (plus $70 shipping). It's very pretty, the body is a little longer than a normal tenor, but it does just fit my bags/cases. I added a strap button to the bottom and it feels well balanced with the strap.
The tuning machines are smooth and tune easily. The action is fairly good, but I'll lower it slightly when I add the preamp I ordered from China. It has a three part compensated saddle which I'll change to a four part when I install the pickup. The intonation is sharp on fret 12 for the G, C and E, A is good. The nut slots are not evenly spaced so I'll change that too and make the slots as wide apart as I can.
It sounds a little dull, but I'm figuring the solid spruce top and solid flame maple body needs to work in over time. The biggest negative is the workmanship of the binding, it's very rough, the edges where it meets the body are very poorly done, very amateur, so I'm glad I only paid $51/$70 for it.
Took only 20 days to go from Vietnam to New York, to Los Angeles, during Chinese New Year (the designer, Bruce Wei, is Chinese, his shop is in Vietnam).
The tuning machines are smooth and tune easily. The action is fairly good, but I'll lower it slightly when I add the preamp I ordered from China. It has a three part compensated saddle which I'll change to a four part when I install the pickup. The intonation is sharp on fret 12 for the G, C and E, A is good. The nut slots are not evenly spaced so I'll change that too and make the slots as wide apart as I can.
It sounds a little dull, but I'm figuring the solid spruce top and solid flame maple body needs to work in over time. The biggest negative is the workmanship of the binding, it's very rough, the edges where it meets the body are very poorly done, very amateur, so I'm glad I only paid $51/$70 for it.
Took only 20 days to go from Vietnam to New York, to Los Angeles, during Chinese New Year (the designer, Bruce Wei, is Chinese, his shop is in Vietnam).
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