Most Liked Positive Review

Good looking, great-sounding little instrument

Listening again to the great Led Zeppelin records of my youth, a burning desire suddenly developed in my head to add The Battle of Evermore, Going to California, and all the great Led Zeppelin mandolin songs to my own personal playlist, and of course I don't mean mp3s. Did a fair amount of research and ultimately chose the Ibanez M510E. She is well constructed, very attractive, and sounds as good as she looks, with a nice-looking and nice sounding spruce top and mahogany body. Already knew Ibanez quality to be excellent from other Ibanez guitars I have owned. Also, she has a single-coil pickup with tone and volume controls so no problem being heard in a band. At something in the vicinity of a couple hundred bucks the price certainly fit the budget. In general, guitarists should have a pretty easy time adapting to the mandolin. If you don't have guitar experience, I think this mandolin also would be an excellent learning instrument any for an aspiring mandolinist. What I most love about this instrument is the gorgeous sound she makes. Her chime-like droning seems to emanate from the Angels of Avalon themselves, waiting at dawn in the mists of Bannockburn for the king to arrive on the battlefield. Chilling, thrilling, and just gorgeous! My only hesitation was the tuning engines, about which I'd heard mediocre reports. The luthier changed them out for new Grovers after opening the box at my request. She now holds her tune very well with Grover tuners. Also got a complete set-up from the luthier, which I recommend as money well spent, unless you like doing it yourself. You can certainly pay many hundreds or many thousands more dollars for a mandolin, but it's been my experience what matters is not the name on the headstock or how much you paid. It's what sound comes out of the speaker. And this bonny lass delivers through the speaker as sweetly as any mandolin I've heard lately.