A Plethora of makers

[CelticDude]

While googling "irish bouzouki" I came across this web page: Builders of Irish bouzouki. I had not heard of over half of these luthiers. Poking around these links, there are four that are interesting, but which don't have sound clips nor can I find YouTube or other videos. I'm hoping someone here has some experience with any of these.

Alden Originals - he does have a couple of video links, and the bouzoukis sound quite nice. He's also not much more than a TC bouzouki, which I am considering as a starter instrument. Interesting that he'll make it in any scale length.

Earnest Instruments - Octavio: This is a 23" scale instrument, quite nice looking, although it's not as deep as many. No videos that i could find.

Gernandt Stringed Instruments: An extremely nice looking instrument, again no videos or sound clips.

JBH Guitars (Josh Humphrey): Another nice looking instrument. The only videos are of his Modern bouzouki, which has a side port but not a sound hole. Not the sound I'm looking for. I'm hoping his traditional instrument sounds, well more traditional.

Again, any anecdotes on any of these would be appreciated. Also, if you have a negative experience that you don't want to share publicly, feel free to PM me. As much as I'd like to try these before making a decision, it just isn't feasible, so I'm gathering as much info as I can.

[Scott Tichenor]

Nice list but I've seen a more complete one somewhere.

[Rob Zamites]

Not to mention, several of the builders on that link in the first post no longer build.

[CelticDude]

Okay, fair enough - not the be-all and end-all of lists. However, I'm pretty sure the 4 builders I'm interested are still building, and I'm hoping someone here has had some experience with them.

[Scott Tichenor]

Three of those four at the top of the page have been in the builder database for more than 10 years I'd say but are not often discussed. I know this because I go through all 750-800+- of those builders manually once a year in addition to running link checking software on a daily basis against most of the site. I was pretty impressed with that list initially, and still am, but like many things on the web around 20% of the links on that page are broken so its not been maintained for several years and probably won't be in the future. The web is ever moving and why site owners don't invest in link checking software has always been a mystery to me. We have to run it daily year-round on everything but the forum where it's just not possible to correct all of the bad links that get inserted.

Didn't mean to de-rail the conversation. It's a credible resource and an interesting page you found and I may try to mine a few of those for the Cafe's list. These resources are much more interesting to me personally as a provider of content. Building a resource like a builder database is one thing, but maintaining its accuracy is an entirely different activity that involves continuous attention.

[Explorer]

Okay, fair enough - not the be-all and end-all of lists. However, I'm pretty sure the 4 builders I'm interested are still building, and I'm hoping someone here has had some experience with them.

I have to wonder... what about those four builders makes them the top contenders?

Since you're saying that most have no vids, or that you didn't like the sound of one of them, there must be something which makes you think these folks, with little information, are better than the rest for your specific purposes.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just interested in your criteria leading to that group selection.

[CelticDude]

Explorer: My basic criteria is that they are rather nice-looking instruments. The first one, Alden Originals, does have a couple of videos, makes a nice looking instrument, and is about half of what other makers are. As for the others, I'm sort of looking for a comparison group to the usual Nyberg and Crump recommendations, which DO have sound clips, are really nice sounding, but aren't quite what I'm looking for looks-wise. In the end sound will win, but I'm trying to explore all options. The Alden sounds about as nice as the Crump OM, IMHO.

I've made no decisions at this point, which is why I'm looking for info.