If money was no object, and perfect bluegrass mandolin tone was the only goal...
Ok, so money is not no object in this scenario, but the idea is to optimize tone to price point ratio. So, not spend any more than necessary for the absolute finest bluegrass mandolin tone.
Tone being subjective, let's narrow it down to the highly-prized tone of a '22-'24 Loar signed Master Model as a slightly more objective definition of perfect bluegrass tone. At least that gets us in the ballpark.
Tone is the only goal, so we leave out anything purely aesthetic in nature. We won't need scrolls & points, inlays & bindings, figured woods (except where figure plays a part in tone, such as spruce grain), fancy hardware, etc. The finish should only serve tone, but does not need to impressive the art critics. The difficult part here is that most builders making fine sounding instruments rarely go fully bare-bones, so I think we have to say minimum viable ornamentation.
Hypothetically, name recognition is irrelevant, but name recognition comes from reputation which in turn comes from quality instruments. So, let's pretend it can be built by anyone, but not have any identifying marks on it. Yes, a Gilchrist costs what it does for a reason, but a big part of that reason is reputation and scarcity. Would an unmarked Gilchrist fetch $25k (where the builder was specifically unknown, not we know it's a Gilchrist)? You tell me.
So where does that leave us? A modest A-style, perhaps. Does any builder spring to mind as a capable of producing the finest bluegrass mandolin tone but as yet to fetch stratospheric prices? I say that, once again, knowing that those builders earned their reputation, and that a quality instrument takes time and experience to craft. I'm certainly not suggesting we can achieve our goal for a paltry sum, but what is the price point at which we can get no closer to the holy grail of tone. Barring of course purchasing an actual Loar, which is off limits in this thought experiment.
Why am I inquiring, you ask? Well, because this is precisely what I seek, and I had a particular builder in mind. I was thinking an Apitius A Studio Loar Spec would get me awfully close at a reasonable $5k (albeit far from spartan in specification), but it seems Oliver has closed his waiting list for the time being. So, I bring this riddle before the hive mind. Who among us can deliver the immortal tone of Loar in the cup of a carpenter?
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