Dubova Mandolins

[George Henry]

Anyone seen and/or played by this Virginia maker? Any opinions about sound or general workmanship would be appreciated.

[pheffernan]

You might try a search of the archives using "Dubova" as a keyword: https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/s...archid=9325478

[MikeEdgerton]

The Cafe search function doesn't hold as a link, here is every mention of the name on the Cafe.

[George Henry]

I drove from East Tennessee to Nashville to look at Dubova #40 at Carter Vintage, where the mandolin was on sale. The workmanship was decent, the maker showing some promise. I liked the general shaping of the instrument, particularly the shaping of the top and back, and the recurves. But it was obvious that the top was too thick, and the bracing positively massive. It was obvious that somebody knew absolutely nothing about bridge fitting, as the bridge had a flat top for a radiused fretboard. The bottom of the bridge was not fit to the bridge curves at all. Perhaps the bridge was not original to the mandolin at all. I don't know.

The sound of the mandolin turned out to be small, stiff, and choked.

I was hoping for better.

[redlineroots]

Two years later, a couple more builds and #82 is sounding pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg1nndZVej0

Trying to revitalize this thread. Anyone have any recent experience with Michael? Although some of his designs are a bit "non traditional" I am surprised his name hasn't popped up more frequently in the "affordable US made instruments" posts.

[Jim De Koch]

Two years later, a couple more builds and #82 is sounding pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg1nndZVej0

Trying to revitalize this thread. Anyone have any recent experience with Michael? Although some of his designs are a bit "non traditional" I am surprised his name hasn't popped up more frequently in the "affordable US made instruments" posts.

September 2023, I recently took delivery of an octave mandolin that I waited a long time for Michael to complete. Much longer than he stated at the onset of the build. While the instrument is beautiful, I am having the similar problems as stated earlier in this thread. The bridge it tipped way forward and I’m having difficultly with the instrument holding any sort of consistent tuning. There are things that are aesthetically questionable for an instrument this expensive, but they are less of a concern to me than the bridge setup. The instrument arrived with one side of the bridge so low that there is no more room for adjustment. I’ve reached out to Michael multiple times over the past three weeks asking him to contact me to address my concerns. After multiple attempts he just message back and said, “return it”. I’m hesitant to do that without at least a phone call from him to discuss this bridge. After a year and a half of working with him on this build, and now pretty much silence from him, I’m beginning to wonder if something happened.