Lee
Jun-10-2004, 9:46am
Last week I was between jobs and had a few days to kill so I spun the wheel and Nashville won. The mansions, the Parthenon, Cheekwood, the scent of magnolia's in the early summer air, I had a blast. Cool place. Gruhn's "Wall of Sound" was tantalizing. They were nice and let me play 'em all. The Master Model was the best Gibson I've been lucky enough to play. Oddly, the Sam Bush model fell far short. The Charles Horner was extremely commendable, if a bit rough around the scroll. But the one that blew me away was the brand new Old Wave A-style oval hole. The tone is to die for and it plays like clarified butter. The entire mandolin is finished natural with tortoise body binding and a one-piece bridge of some dark wood. The top is a wide grained Englemann, the rest is Pennsylvania sugar maple. The Creator of All Things Old Wave is currently out of town so I hope to learn more about the #325 mandolin upon Bill's return on Monday. Being a Philly boy myself with PA ancestors going back three hundred years, the Pennsy maple was the clincher. As gracious as southern hospitality, Roger at Gruhn's was glad to take my order and she's on her way north. I ordinarily don't buy new but thought I deserved it. For traditional oval-holes it seems that Bill Bussman and Peter Coombe are ranked quite high. This will commemorate a wonderful, if rather short, vacation and a celebration of landing a great job after a very stressfull lay-off.
The other honorable mention was the $375 F-style Rover mandolins from China. Yes, there is a sub-$1000 F-style mandolin that is worth owning. The black one sounded a bit nicer than the other one. Both played well, felt solid, and sounded commendable.
The other honorable mention was the $375 F-style Rover mandolins from China. Yes, there is a sub-$1000 F-style mandolin that is worth owning. The black one sounded a bit nicer than the other one. Both played well, felt solid, and sounded commendable.