Flatiron festival

[bluegrassdan]

I'm not a great player but am always wondering about better tone. Is a Flatiron festival F going to blow my Eastman 515 out of the water? I dont live anywhere near a place to try different mandos and bought my Eastman online.

[bradeinhorn]

yeah

[bluegrassdan]

Thats the quickest response I have ever gotten. Is 2000 a good deal on the Flatiron?

[bradeinhorn]

sounds good - the one at the mandolin store?

[bluegrassdan]

Yeah. Know anything about it.

[Greenmando]

I think $2000 for any Festival is a deal, play as many as you can. Nashville made Flatirons are the same as a F5 at half the price.

[bradeinhorn]

i know dennis is pretty reputable around these parts and very fair. i have had positive experiences with him as well. i am sure you'll get a good approval period, so i don't see a risk at that price. plus it's got the speedneck!

[RichM]

The Festival F is one of the best mandolin bargains out there. I'm an Eastman fan, but I'll be the first to say that a Festival is a nice step up in quality.

[bluegrassdan]

Good as an F5g I hear.

[Rick Schmidlin]

Get it NOW!

[pickinNgrinnin]

[QUOTE]Good as an F5g I hear.

Same as the F5-G except for a few cosmetic differences. They also sold for much less than the F5-G new. That's one of the reasons Gibson quit making them.

I've owned 2 Nashville Flatiron Festivals and had a lot of fun with them. Great tone and value. Graduated to Loar specifications like the rest of the Gibson line. Tone Bar braced. A definite step up from an Eastman. I picked up one a few years back for $1600 - a great deal. Kind of wish I still had that one but it became a victim along the M.A.S. trail.

[Mikey G]

As a Flatiron Festival owner, the answer is YES and YES. It is a step up, and does sound better IMHO. $2K for a Flatiron is a bargain....I believe these mandolins are very underpriced, and are a GREAT value, especially since most are priced around $2500-$2800.

[cooper4205]

there is no comparing between my Flatiron A5 and my Eastman 515. while both are good mandolins, the Flatty is by far the better one in terms of volume, tone and fit and finish. i do play the Eastman some, but my A5 gets the majority of the attention.

[Five]

Side by side your Eastman to the Flatiron and then decide. The name does not make the mandolin.

[Crowder]

Side by side your Eastman to the Flatiron and then decide. The name does not make the mandolin.
No, but a handcrafted mandolin made with good wood has a 95% chance of sounding better than a mass-produced Asian instrument where a lot of the money goes into ornamentation.

This is a slam dunk.

[DryBones]

I wouldn't consider a "hand crafted" Eastman a mass produced asian import. I am still looking for the ornamentation you mention on my Eastman 505...nope, it's a plain jane good sounding mando. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I would still make the upgrade though if there was a lefty Flatiron available. MAS has no limits. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Chris "Bucket" Thomas]

I upgraded from a MK to a Flatiron Performer about 6 months ago.

There is no comparison!

I paid $2100 for a Performer, a good deal. Flatiron prices seem to be inflated by the guys "flipping" the instruments to make a buck. For example, they generaly want $2100 for a Festival.

Do it, you won't regret it.

[big h]

I do not know how Flatirons compare to Webers,but I played a case full of webers and my 515 sounded just as good as any of them.

[Five]

[QUOTE]No, but a handcrafted mandolin made with good wood has a 95% chance of sounding better than a mass-produced Asian instrument where a lot of the money goes into ornamentation.

I agree Crowder.....That is why many people buy Eastman mandolins. Hand crafted,high grade woods,varnish finish, and those ornate dots on the fingerboards.

[JeffS]

No, but a handcrafted mandolin made with good wood has a 95% chance of sounding better than a mass-produced Asian instrument where a lot of the money goes into ornamentation.

This is a slam dunk.
I'd like to see the research on this. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I think you have Eastman confused with Michael Kelly. To me Eastman's are probably the least ornate instruments out there. No fancy inlay on the headstock, just a bland looking logo.

[Rick Cadger]

Side by side your Eastman to the Flatiron and then decide. The name does not make the mandolin.
No, but a handcrafted mandolin made with good wood has a 95% chance of sounding better than a mass-produced Asian instrument where a lot of the money goes into ornamentation.

This is a slam dunk.
i have played perhaps a dozen Eastman mandolins. they are surprisingly common in England now. i have heard and played better instruments, but from what i have seen, your comment seems unjustifiable. the Eastmans are, for the price, very good, consistent, handmade instruments. not mass-produced in the way most would understand the term. and when will people stop using the term 'Asian' as if it implied something bad?

one has to wonder what experience you base your comment on.

[bradeinhorn]

i have played perhaps a dozen Eastman mandolins. they are surprisingly common in England now. i have heard and played better instruments, but from what i have seen, your comment seems unjustifiable. the Eastmans are, for the price, very good, consistent, handmade instruments. not mass-produced in the way most would understand the term. and when will people stop using the term 'Asian' as if it implied something bad?

one has to wonder what experience you base your comment on.
If he's like me, he bases his experience #on having played several Eastmans and several flatirons and other handmade US, Czech, Canadian, British and other builders.

While they are kicking butt in the sub-1000 dollar market, Eastman Mandolins are flat-out not of the same quality as Flatirons or these others. I have played probably well over 30 of them, and one or two had a sound closer to 2000+ instrument. While Eastmans look nice and are seemingly put together and finished well, most, in my opinion, most have tonal qualities of entry level, cheaply produced instruments in the $50-$600 dollar range.

I think that the 95% statistic is conservative. If it wasn't, the price of higher end intruments would be completely unjustifiable. Somehow, mandolin prices keep going up. Why? Because there is clearly a huge spectrum in the ability of today's high end mandolin makers.

I think Eastman is going to have a lot more competition in the near future and that is a good thing. The KM1000 for example, blows away (and i often criticize others for using that language) any competitively priced eastman i have heard. I will explain - It doesn't have that tinny compression when you dig into it and it plays nicely with good volume up the neck. it has a nicely refined chop and, good working/looking hardware and the finish is as good or better than any Eastman I have seen. So too, I am interested how Gibson will respond to this market with the new flatiron line, which seems more competitively priced with the low to mid priced Eastmans.

Sorry if I make anyone angry at this, but it is not coming from snobbery. It is based from experience of playing a ton of mandolins. Eastman is capitalizing right now on the fact that there really aren't any serious players in the market it is in. Hopefully, competition will cause them to improve, but I have just seen a lot of people buy them blindly and spend more money than they needed to to find out that the instrument was restraining them the same as one several hundred dollars less would.

Hope that elaborates on my initial "yeah" If you don't like that Flatiron WAY more, let me know and I will reimburse you.

Brad

ps-get out the popcorn

[RichM]

Well, perhaps as an antidote to all the bluster in the last post, let me say something simpler. I have owned a few Eastmans, and a couple of Flatirons. I think the Eastmans I have owned (and still own two of) have been very good instruments, not just for the price, but especially for the price. Note I said "owned," as in "played every day" not played for five minutes in a shop. You can decide for yourself if I'm just trying to justify my purchase (as is the common argument for the Eastman-bashers), but you'll note that I've bought more than one. As a musician who's been playing for over 30 years, and who has owned many good quality mandolins (Gibson, Coombe, Phoenix, Rigel, Weber, Triggs, Old Wave, Cohen, and yes, Flatiron) I don't think I'm naive. Eastmans can be a little squirrely in terms of consistency (the best sounding models are often the least expensive), but I have played some pretty impressive examples.

With that being said, the Flatiron Festival F I owned was one of the best sounding mandolins I've played. So if you were asking "Is my Eastman 515 a bad instrument?" I would say "probably not" because although I've never played yours, I have found that model to be well-made and good-sounding and good value. But your question was "Is a Flatiron Festival F an upgrade?" to which I would say yes, I think it's a better-sounding instrument, based on my experiences. Well, what you actually asked was "will it blow my Eastman out of the water." Frankly, I've never really understood this terminology when applied to musical instruments. You currently own a good quality instrument. There are probably instruments out there that you will like better, some you will like less. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that the sound is pleasing to you and you enjoy playing it.

[bradeinhorn]

I never said Eastmans are bad instruments (what does that even mean? - isn't it all relative) - i did say they are on top of the low end market - much for the reason, i conjecture, of little competition. I apologize for being blunt if it was taken that way, but i was much more taken with the worst festival i've played than the best eastman - and while i haven't owned one of either- i have been close to several of both. I know there are several variables that make it hard to judge instruments just spending a little time while with them. set-up for one, string age, etc, but if you've played enough instruments, and enough examples of each, you can begin to hear the potential after a very cursory inspection. To a large degree that's what I based my response on. Rick seems to agree in his more extensive experience.

[DryBones]

I wonder how many Eastman bashers have actually played one that has been "played in" for a few months to a year. My 505 sounds great today but was not when I first bought it about a year ago. Sometimes store comparisons can be very misleading with new instruments IMHO. As always, YMMV http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Jason Holmes]

I agree, Drybones. I have a classic varnished 615 that's now a year and a half old, and it sounds great to me, though I thought it sounded acceptably good even when it was new. It did get Steve Perry's MandoVoodoo treatment before it came to me, which I think made it sound noticeably better than any other similar Eastman off the shelf that I tried. Oh, and I did switch out the stock bridge for a Brekke.

[pickinNgrinnin]

Upgrade from Eastman?

I didn't think it was possible to upgrade from an Eastman http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

hanknc - where are you buddy? Time for a big up http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[hanknc]

Yo!

[pickinNgrinnin]

http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[MikeEdgerton]

I don't consider myself an Eastman basher, I had my 615 for a good period of time before I upgraded to a Gibson F5G. As nice as the Eastman was the Gibson was just better, and I hope to shout it would have been because of the price difference.

As with anything else, if it floats your boat that's cool.

[bluegrassdan]

Does the f5g have larger fret wire then the Flatiron?

[cooper4205]

Does the f5g have larger fret wire then the Flatiron?
as far as i know, only the flatirons came with larger frets

[hanknc]

Another thread 'jacked into the same old Eastman vs. every other brand topic. Sorry, bluegrassdan. Good luck and let us know how that Flatiron turned out.

It never ceases to amaze me how some folks just can't seem to accept the fact that an Eastman performs well compared to famous brand names. Make up your own mind. My Eastman is really nice but I picked it out of a whole bunch of them. Most of the Eastmans I play are exceptional values. A few are exceptional instruments. The same goes for any other brand.

"Eastman is capitalizing right now on the fact that there really aren't any serious players in the market it is in."

Braidenhorn, I love you man, but seriously, you can't mean that?

[MikeEdgerton]

My F5G has small frets.

[pager]

Eastman is a very small company that builds their mandolins basically by hand. No CNC machines at Eastman. They only turn out about 500 mandolins per year. I won't get into the 'sound' debate, but saying that Eastman mass produces their mandolins, is an incorrect assumption.

[bradeinhorn]

"Eastman is capitalizing right now on the fact that there really aren't any serious players in the market it is in."

Braidenhorn, I love you man, but seriously, you can't mean that?
i love you too -

maybe i was misunderstood - i think eastman is to a large extent #- the main maker of decent-good quality mandolins (around here especially) in the 600-1200 dollar market (i know they have some more expensive and some less). and i applaud that - but when i hear someone say it is going to be competive with that flatiron festival or "better than a wall of webers", etc., i just get a little suspect. also-i think there is going to be a lot more newfound competition for them in the not too distant future.

[JEStanek]

I hope Eastman is pushed by the competition too. I would like them to have larger frets and bridges that weren't up so high. That said they're into the, what is it, 4th or 5th year making mandos... not too shabby. They can improve.

Jamie

[Kevin Briggs]

My buddy plays a nice Eastman, not sure which model. It's got the F5g-type appointments: body binding, none on neck or headstock. Not the top Eastman F, but only different visually. It plays well and sounds better than any pac-rim I've played. Most impressively, it has great volume and a solid woody chop. Now, he plays the heck out of it every day, and he can do good setups, so it benefits from all of that.

I also played a few at the acoustic music works in Pittsburgh, a shop renowned for mandolin stuff. The instruments there have great setups. I played one F style in particular that was very, very good. I would have been happy with it as a workhorse F style, road worthy, a high end festival mandolin for sure. It lacked something that I've grown accustomed to with my mandolin, but that may be conditioning or something. I've been playing the same mandolin for a while, so I'm pretty comfortable with the tone and action and everything.

At the same store, I played a pretty bad Eastman two-point. Actually both of the two-points I played were not very good, and I really like two-points. They both sounded tinny, like the tone needed to be mauled out of them. I would have prefered my old Ketucky 340s over them. Heck, my old Alvarez A100 outperformed them. This may speak to some inconsistencies in the Eastman shop. I'm sure they will even it out, hopefully on the side of that nice F style I played.

I will add that most of the Eastmans looked pretty dang nice. The flame in the wood was impressive, right up there with much more expensive models, although it was a little erratic at points. I think "bookmatched" didn't really apply. The great F style I played had a flaw in the binding on the top of the neck, so that stood out when looking at my left hand.

I did, however, find the necks to be very comfortable. I had Sound to Earth redo the beefy U-shaped neck on my mandolin to a slimmer, Flatiron '94 Artist variation, and the Eastman's were very similar. There was no issue of the necks being uncomfortable. I also think the slight radius worked very well, as I didn't groan about the flat fingerboard, but didn't notice anything extraordinary either. It was a tasteful radius, very subtle. It was like you could sense it, not feel it. Kinda' cool.

I'd get an Eastman an eastman and feel pretty good about it, if I was ever in the market in that price range.

[Crowder]

At a certain level of building, "personal preference" is the primary difference between one and another. Get 10 top-end mandolins and 10 good players together and no one would "rank" them exactly the same way.

At more basic levels, there are clear advantages to certain methods and techniques of building, plus the experience and care demonstrated by the person or people doing the building. That's what I think we're dealing with in this thread. Most every Flatiron you will find, regardless of its neck construction or bracing, was built of excellent materials, in a small shop, and in no great hurry. I don't know that you can say the same for every Eastman, but I am willing to be proven wrong.

[bluegrassdan]

Well that Flatiron is gone. Waited too long. thought the price was way more than my talent and debated too long. . Now i am thinking A9 where its all about the sound with no fanciness and a lower price.( although the newer sunburst models might be nice. arghhh)

[hanknc]

"That's what I think we're dealing with in this thread. Most every Flatiron you will find, regardless of its neck construction or bracing, was built of excellent materials, in a small shop, and in no great hurry. I don't know that you can say the same for every Eastman, but I am willing to be proven wrong."

Here you go: http://www.eastmanstrings.com/eastmanmandolins/workshop/tour1.html

I don't know either that every Eastman is going to be as nice as Flatirons are, but they seem to be doing it right.

[bradeinhorn]

i think the a-9 would be a similar sounding to the flatty and a nice upgrade from the eastman.

[MikeEdgerton]

I actually like the way the older A9's look without the sunburst. I'd give one of those a shot as well. If you can stretch some more watch the classifieds for an A5G.

[bradeinhorn]

i agree. not crazy about bursts without white binding in general. mandolin brothers has a really nice used a-5g right now (i played it last week). if you call stan, he'll play it over the phone for you.

here's a link:

mandobros a-5g (http://www.mandoweb.com/15-5252.jpg)

[MikeEdgerton]

i agree. not crazy about bursts without white binding in general

You know I never realized until you said that what it was that looked odd to me about the new A9's and F9's. That's it.

Wow, that A5G (http://www.mandoweb.com/15-5252.jpg) at mandolin Bros. has a bound back. I thought they were unbound like the F5G. I wish I was looking for one right now.

[PCypert]

There's also a used A9 at the mandolin store. Easy to deal with folks. Pretty good mandolin for the money. That's a store that actually has prices like things go for here on the cafe classifieds unlike some other dealers. I watch that site daily...snagged a great deal last night too.

Paul

[cooper4205]

the mandolin store is also getting an A5-G in really soon. I have also seen alot of Flatiron A5's with the same trim as the A5-G, were they Performer series or another

here's another option- the Acoustic Music shop has a Flatiron A5-Jr. (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.aomusicshop.com/aom/img/instruments/16014_thumb.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.aomusicshop.com/aom/instruments/index.asp%3Fprodid%3D3&h=93&w=37&sz=2&hl=en&start=27&sig2=pF1xFdNChE1ETHFxufA_Ew&um=1&tbnid=aNApiDiMKjFQ5M:&tbnh=80&tbnw=32&ei=mBhCRruFHoGuhAS26LyfDw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dflatiron%2BA5-Jr.%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1 %26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN) that is really similar to mine, only i little older and with nicer flame on the back

[PCypert]

I've heard nice things about the Flatiron Jr's. I'd also check the 'bay at times...I've seen Performer A styles for less than 1K...I actually won one on accident a few months back as I put a bid thinking who wouldn't bid on a Performer A for 900 bucks...there were a bunch of them on at the time and I won! Too good a deal for those mandolins.

Paul

[Greenmando]

I actually like the way the older A9's look without the sunburst. I'd give one of those a shot as well. If you can stretch some more watch the classifieds for an A5G.
I too love the early A9's and F9's. I have a A with great flame and a F with nice quilt. My F9 is still waking up, the A9 has a great smooth sound and chop. But it is a different tone and feel than my Flatiron Festival who has a permanent home here.

It is really hard for me to compare my Eastman as it is a oval hole.

I have to hand kudos to the posters here with Eastman's comparing them to Gibson's and Flatiron's. The MK crowd compare theirs to Loar's. #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

My A9 purchased from our classifieds
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b109/ferretkona/Mandolins/Gibson004.jpg