I love reading the mandolin comparisons found here on the Cafe ...very helpful insight by people actually playing these things . In that regard I thought I'd post this for what it may be worth.
I've had a KM 150 for a few years now and I've never ceased to be impressed by the tone ....deep , even , not shrill ( some Eastmans I've played ) and loud . Recently I bought a KM 256 for a very good price hoping the extended , radiused fretboard and 'better tonewoods' would make a noticeable difference . And , in fact , I did listen to the posted videos of the 250 series and they did sound good . It was a different tone ...but not in the way I'd hoped . After a set-up , re-stringing and playing daily ( for up to several hours ) for two weeks it seemed the tone was 'trapped' inside .....had no real low-end warmth but did project when played aggressively . And yes , the radius board was noticeable in a good way ..but not significantly so when compared with my KM 150 .
Overall I'd describe it as '' toy-like'' in sound . Not very defined .
We all know that 5 identical models will each sound different from the next. Unfortunately I didn't have four others to compare it to . Only the KM 150 . And the KM 150 won that round . I returned the 256 .
I'd be very curious as to whether anyone else has played the two mandolins above and to hear any thoughts . I haven't ruled out another 256 if it had better tone
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