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Being a beginning mandolin player
as of 2005 on a fairly tight budget, I started on a decent sounding well
respected Chinese made instrument which I had hand picked from a dozen or
so others. After some experience, I came to realize that Chinese
instrument did not have the sound I wanted from a mandolin. It didn’t
sound bad, but it didn’t have the rich tones I had heard from other mandos.
(The curse of being a sound engineer.) After playing a number of
manufacturers’ mandolins, I tried a few Webers at The Mandolin Store in
Washington Court House, Ohio. (Pardon the shameless plug, but the owner
Dennis Vance has been great.) I quickly realized the difference in these
instruments in sound and quality. I picked up this particular “Special
Edition” Gallatin from the wall and realized I had a sweet sounding cannon
in my hands after just a few chords. This instrument has the deep bottom
end, sweet top end, bell-like ring and volume of a high end aged quality
instrument. It can go from sounding very gently sweet and beautifully
melodic to being an absolute cannon upon request. The comment I made to
my wife was that my original mandolin made nice clean notes, but this
mandolin “sings”. Even she agreed! The harmonics and phasing I hear are
amazing. I will even go so far as to compare this instrument to a certain
manufacturer’s new $30K mandolin. (Yep, $30,000) To be as kind as
possible I would have to say that no one would pick the $30K instrument
over my Special Edition Gallatin based on sound quality, regardless of the
fact that it cost less than 1/10th of the price! To top it
off, the instrument is beautiful to the last detail. The back is
gorgeous. I have never seen another manufacturer’s finish as perfect as
any of the Weber’s. It is even finished perfectly under the “tongue” of
the fingerboard on the top. (How do you guys at Weber do that?) The only
thing that could be sweeter would be a custom Fern with varnish finish
that sounds like this one! But even if I get a Fern in time, this one is
staying in the family! Kudos and thanks to Bruce Weber and all of you
wonderful craftsmen and craftswomen at Sound to Earth!
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