Ibanez manolins (Model 522)(700)

[ifakesummando]

Does anyone out there (under the pain of admitting to "slumming" have any hands on experience with any of the newer Ibanez F style mandolins?

[Mark Gunter]

I play a M522S-BS - I haven't been playing long, and I knew nothing really about mandolins when I bought it. I did know it had a solid spruce pressed top, but it was awhile before I realized how cheesy it must seem to anyone with a carved top mandolin . . . the body scroll is flat across, without the carved-in crown that should be there.

I consider the mandolin adequate for learning for a beginner, it plays and sounds like a mandolin, but IMO it sounds and plays like a cheap mandolin. I am happy for the fun times learning to play on it, and I still enjoy the feel of it and play it often, along with my washburn A-style which is moderately a better mandolin in some respects.

Here is a video of the irritating jangly sound of the Ibanez:



For comparison, the slightly less jarring sound of the Washburn M106SWK:



If I could do it over, I'd spend a little more time shopping; with the money invested in these two, I feel I could have gotten a really nice mandolin used. But at the time I bought that Ibanez, I didn't realize that I was about to become obsessed with trying to learn the mandolin. Had I known how important the mando quest would become to me, I might have figured out some way to invest more in an instrument from the get-go.