Cheap Octave-Mandolin Anybody have first person experience?

[Foolish Frost]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Octave-Mand...i/282372020391

I'm curious if this is worth anything as a mandolin. Yes, I know it's cheap, but it comes down to if it's as good or better than a cheap guitar. Or if it's utter trash.

Part that worries me is that it says it has an "Adjustable truss rod". I don't see the panel for it on the neck. Am I missing something?

Also been looking at an electric mandobass guitar conversion. It really seems like a grand item, but costs out a twice this little thing, and of course, is not acoustic.

Your thoughts?

[Seter]

That is a Hora octave mandolin, I had one until I upgraded to a Gold Tone. I still have a similar Hora Irish bouzouki that gets a lot of use. The truss rod is adjusted via the soundhole rather than the neck. They make no frills instruments with a focus on using solid woods, it will sound good but may need set up work to play comfortably.

I would recommend buying via this eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Octave-mand...MDq:rk:10:pf:0 which is from Hora themselves rather than the link you posted. You can also buy the same instrument branded as Thomann and get a free gig bag which is nice: https://www.thomannmusic.com/thomann...in_m1087_p.htm

If you scroll down a bit you'll see my thread about this instrument, I also have a few youtube videos of it on my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGF..._lMeSIQ/videos

[allenhopkins]

Says it has a "3-band graphic EQ" but there's no info about a pickup, which I assume would be an internally-mounted piezo?? Or what?

Concur with Seter; lots of Hora instruments sold in Europe, solid woods, plain and unsophisticated, often needing a fair amount of set-up.

[Seter]

Says it has a "3-band graphic EQ" but there's no info about a pickup, which I assume would be an internally-mounted piezo?? Or what?

Concur with Seter; lots of Hora instruments sold in Europe, solid woods, plain and unsophisticated, often needing a fair amount of set-up.

Yeah it was an undersaddle piezo pickup. The one in the ad Foolish Frost posted is actually the all acoustic model with the much maligned banjo-esque bridge despite the ad being for the acoustic-electric model; the acoustic-electric has a fixed bridge. Soundwise I would put it on par with or slightly better than the Gold Tone (it has all solid woods where as the Gold Tone is solid top, laminated back and sides) but the Gold Tone wins in terms of playability and fit and finish out of the box.