This article is an update to a similar article published about a year earlier. If you really care to see the original article, see: What Makes the Difference Between Pretty Good and Great Acoustic Stringed Instruments? If you wish to discuss anything covered in this article, see Don Rickert on Linktree: https://linktr.ee/donrickert. This link gets you to ALL of my detailed contact information, my websites and social media. Introduction Before I start, what are the criteria for judging the sound quality of musical instruments? I hope that the reader can agree that this is largely subjective, and often, culturally relative. For example, take the case of the octave mandolin and an "Irish" bouzouki (to differentiate it from a "Greek" bouzouki). Protests by enthusiasts notwithstanding, they are variants of the same instrument and can certainly be tuned in the same way. But an Irish bouzouki player might describe an octave mandolin as a bouzouki that is too "bassy" and/or "sounds too much like a guitar". On the other hand an octave mandolin enthusiast might describe a bouzouki as a thin and tinny-sounding version of a good octave mandolin, as well as having a scale length that is too long. The point here is that the attribution of "good" or "bad" with respect to the sound of large lower-pitched mandolin-like instruments is very subjective and arbitrary, and based on expectations set by many decades of recordings by influential artists. There exist many other comparisons between the sound of superficially similar instruments, such... Read more →