If I had limited income and was trying to only buy one mandolin, for me it would definitely be my Eastman MD315. A surprisingly dark woody tone that I love. Good fit and finish, very playable fretboard. The look of the matte finish has grown on me. The finish is more dentable than the glossy finish on my MD505, though, but I prefer the sound of the MD315. (I'll probably try bigger frets when the time comes to replace the frets, but that is only based on comments on this forum.)
I bought my MD315 from the Mandolin Store and they did the setup. The MD315 has a rather poor reputation with its tuners, and mine had a couple of extra stiff tuners and one tuner was too loose. I tried different things to loosen up the stiff tuners, but I finally spent about $70 and put on a set of Grover 309's myself (very easy changeout). Oh, I did lots of experimenting with picks and strings to maximize the sound. I think I'm settling in with the D'Addario EXP74CM with the heavier E and A strings.
I think I really could be happy with this mandolin alone, but reading all the steady flow of Mandolin Cafe raves about higher priced mandolins has me planning to buy at least two more mandolins - a $1500 Silver Angel Econo A that is in work, and potentially something around the $5000 range later. Economically, I'm hoping that the Silver Angel and the MD315 dampen the need to spend on the higher priced end!
Again, the drive for the higher-priced mandolins hasn't been driven by any dissatisfaction with the MD315 (I don't have any) or by trying other instruments. I've played lots of mandolins up to the $7k range - Collings, Gibson, Northfield, Weber, and many others, and though some were obviously better in one way or another (nicer finishes, more bling, a bit louder, a bit sweeter, etc), none of them took away my joy of playing my MD315. It's a fine instrument that gets lots of positive comments from fellow musicians.
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