Kentucky KM-150 Standard A-model Mandolin - Sunburst

Beautiful sound, beautiful to look at. Never owned a mandolin although, I have owned over a dozen guitars these past 50 years. I'm not a professional musician because nobody would ever pay to hear me sing. It keeps my wife happy though and she enjoys it.So my opinion about this mandolin? I've plucked a lot of other mandolins in the past 50 years and finally decided to get one for myself. I read a lot of reviews and finally decided on this one, in large part based upon the previous review. It is everything that fella said, and is prettier than I expected. Here is my own 2-cents; It is spruce and maple, and that much wood still makes the best sound. I have a laminate Baby Martin guitar which is very good, and although solid wood will always sound better, the new laminates sound very good.A lot of lower priced mandolins are now at least partially composite laminates, but don't call them plywood. The modern "engineered woods" are more stable and stronger than equally thin slices of the solid woods. Do they sound exactly the same? Of course not, but they do sound great and have very fine resonance. The sustain on my new mandolin is excellent compared to an equally priced solid wood example from 50 years ago. Its all subjective anyway. For my money I'm glad I spent less money on this one. I just can't justify $1200 for my first mandolin. The finish is glossy and the grain is beautiful. Action is light and the bridge was easy to adjust. It took me a couple of hours to set the bridge and adjust the string height, but after that the tuning fell right into place.It may help some people to know that, the distance from the nut to the 12th fret must be equal to the distance from the 12th fret to the middle of the bridge. After reading many reviews, it seems that this may not be obvious to some. When you are done the bridge will be in the same spot as shown in the picture above (Hope they haven't changed it!) Get a plastic ruler and measure from the middle of each. Also, the left-right position of the bridge, and the squaring of the bridge can be measured from the sides and bottom of the body. It's really easy.

I've had my KM-150 for about six months. Learning the mando was on my bucket list for years, and I did a lot of research before making the purchase for a beginner model. Initially I had a bias against Kentucky as a low end model, but then I started finding a lot of positive reviews from experienced pickers. Add to that the description of "solid" AND "carved", with the latter being the give-away that it was not a laminate, and I started taking a hard look at this one.I paid $210 during a promotion and also bought a soft case, strap, some heavy picks, and several boxes of strings. Yes, I had to fiddle with the bridge to get decent action and intonation, but I didn't have to touch the neck. It must have come with J74's because I was blown away by the sound right out of the box. There is a very wide mid-range where you get that woody Gibson bluegrass sound, especially with the tremolo's. I found the E string range to sound a bit tinny, but that could be my rough playing as well.After a few months of practicing via Youtube lessons (a great resource these days), I changed the strings to bronze Elixers and found them way to metallic sounding - they lasted a week before I put another set of J74's back on.Anyway, I played in public with a guitarist and singer for the first time last week using a basic condenser mic, and received several positive comments about the sound of this little beginner mando. I think it has "opened up" in the last two weeks, and that sweet spot mid-range is even wider now. My plan was to trade up to an F model at several times the cost, but now I'm thinking that may not happen so fast.This is a great sounding instrument and by far the best value out there.

This is my first mandolin and I am very pleased. It arrived professionally packed and in beautiful condition. Set up had been done. Very easy to play. Sounds great. I did my research before hand and I'm very satisfied with my purchase. Highly recommend Kentucky KM-150.

I have several mandolins, but no real high end ones.However, this mandolin is the best sounding one I've ever had.The important thing about this mandolin is making sure the bridge is set up right.With floating bridges it's very important that it's in the right place.I didn't have it set right, and couldn't understand why I couldn't tune it.I've never had a mandolin with a floating bridge before, and it wasn't until I got the bridge situated right that I could tune it correctly.When I finally did, the mandolin was easy to tune and is the best sounding mandolin I've ever had.I've never played a real expensive mandolin, but this one sounds great for the price.I'd have given it a 4.5 it that would have been possible. That's a pretty high rating by my standards.Excellent value for the money.