While it's easy to get wrapped up in some of the high-end builder eye-candy, once in a while we like to take a close look at affordable mid-price instruments--mandolins good for the intermediate player or traveling professional. We've taken the time to closely scrutinize some of the noteworthy product recently built under the "JBovier" brand, in particular a stunning African Zebrawood beauty model F5Z. (Street priced around $1400+/-)

Music instrument manufacturing has gone through significant change the last decade, much as other domestic durable goods industries. Globalization has opened access to new options and price opportunities, and not always for the better. What makes it happen positively is when effective lines of communication are opened; the customer/market needs are clearly expressed to the maker, but roving vast geographical, cultural, and language barriers, that isn't as easy as it sounds. A factory's willingness to make superior product can only be possible with an effective agent or "ambassador," one able to convey the subtle, inherent details of more sophisticated market needs and desires.

Hundreds of thousands of really bad import product out there exists, and routinely sold to an indiscreet consumer through faceless channels like auction warehouses and sterile "Big Box" stores, often neither buyer nor builder can distinguish bad from really, REALLY bad. This is the new frontier of globalization, someone who can translate the reigning definitions of "good," and transcend the meekly "appropriate." In mandolins, it's not just fretboards that can stay on, or tops that won't cave under pressure, it's polisehd fretwork ends that don't scrape fingers, frets large enough to easily center pitch, stable tuners that hold strings and turn effectively, let alone woods with superior tone. It even goes as far as appropriate cosmetic aesthetics; you can't just slap an "Americana" brand name on the label, and expect the domestic market to embrace it.

We've seen a handful of pioneers blaze this upwards trail. In particular, Jeff Cowherd of JBovier Mandolins has taken the plunge and connected a quality-centered Korean craftsman base with an American market ideal. His line of A5 and F5 mandolins is worth noting, and you'll want to read our latest builder review to see why!

Read review: JBovier F5Z Mandolin

Are you going to the Summer NAMM show? JBovier mandolin models will be on display at Summer NAMM, in booth #1624.

Posted by Ted at July 7, 2009 7:46 PM