The Loar LM-110 Honey Creek BRB

I was new to playing the mandolin when I purchased this item, so this review is after having done a lot of practice, and I have played other mandolins in order to compare (including an Eastman oval hole, and a professional luthier hand made instrument).

The tone is really good for an instrument in this price range, although I did swap out the stock strings for some flat-wounds, which worked well for me. This took a little of the brightness off, but it left a lovely rich quality to the tone of mandolin, which has a pleasing solidity and warmth to it, and there was still that typical mandolin "sweetness" to the upper end. As might be expected in this price range, the weakest string is the lowest G string, but otherwise, the tone is pretty even.

The finish is adequate - no major issues, and the matt texture of the finish "probably" contributes to the sound and feel of playing in a good way. I found that I had to very gently file a sharp corner off the "nut" on the e-string side because I kept catching my index finger on it.

The tuning pegs are "ok" - not the easiest to fine tune, but they do hold pitch well.

In terms of out of the box setup, the bridge was really not positioned correctly, so you may need to be ready to do a little re-positioning in order for the upper notes to play in tune. Maybe I was unlucky... but this is easily fixed. The adjustable height on the bridge itself means you can get a half decent setup with little effort.

Bought this mandolin for mountain trips and late night beatings at the pub. I might have been lucky, but I feel like I got a really great mandolin for the price. The set up was far from perfect out of the box, so do not expect anything here. But with some work it both plays and sounds nice. I have it set up with Daddario EJ74.

Mandolin is my everyday instrument and I´ve played a lot of mandolins, both great and bad ones. I currently sling Eastman MD605 as my main mandolin, but the tone and feel doesn´t really scale to the price difference.

If you are a beginner or a seasoned mandolin player looking for beater this might be the right choice for you. But you have to expect to do some work on it (or have a professional do it).

Side note: This review is made with the price tag in mind. If you compare it with something from the top shelf without taking price in the equation it won´t hit 5 stars.