Mandolin 'dogs'?

[Steve Ostrander]

I’ve played some very high-dollar mandolins by some very highly regarded builders at Elderly that I found extremely underwhelming.

In my experience regarding Weber and Collings, I’ve never played a bad one. Some are truly great, but all are very good.

[Bill McCall]

I've played some very nice mandolins from well known shops that I did not particularly care for. That hardly made them dogs and any one of them may have floated someone else's boat. I've heard them played by others and they sounded great from the from side, but not 'behind the wheel'.

In so many things, YMMV.

[Magnus Geijer]

My #2. Sounded like a rubbermaid tub with strings.

[maxr]

Some Strads are notoriusly difficult to play well (or temperamental) but probably not actually dogs, just require a high skill level.

When I was a kid, I played in amateur symphony orchestras etc. in Glasgow, Scotland. One of the music patrons in the city was a pharmacist and an all round violin nut and good guy called Jimmy B (no surname in case his family still live in the same house). Jimmy had a Strad and a Joseph Rocca in a safe built into his living room wall. He played in dance hall orchestras, but at amateur orchestra parties at his place he'd sometimes get these violins out and hand them around. I was lucky enough to have a very short play on them as they came round. I preferred the Rocca, as it sounded better under the ear than the Strad. However Jimmy got us to go down the bottom of the garden and listen to them being played in the house. You could still hear the Strad clearly, the Roccadidn't carry so well. That's as close as I got to one of those

[Mainer73]

I preferred the Rocca, as it sounded better under the ear than the Strad. However Jimmy got us to go down the bottom of the garden and listen to them being played in the house. You could still hear the Strad clearly, the Roccadidn't carry so well. That's as close as I got to one of those

What a great experience!
That's the funny thing about violins. Sometimes the player doesn't get to benefit from the sound! I still want to have a good player play all 3 of mine so I can get to hear what they sound like from audience distance. It would be interesting to see if my order of favorites changes. I have a 1908 Guadagnini copy (made here in Maine) that sounds a bit doggy under the ear to me compared to my other fiddles, but I have been told it speaks nicely from across the room.

[red7flag]

Robert Bowen was at my home for a picking party. The daughter of a good friend asked him to play her new cheep guitar. I played that guitar before the session and it sounded tinny and was extremely difficult to play. I and a few other friends that played it, wrote that quitar off as hopeless. Robert was able to make it sound like a pre war Martin.

[Amanda Gregg]

Supposedly Tony Rice played an Ovation on the Manzanita album.

More relatedly, my Stiver was a bit of a "dog" in the store when I bought it. It took a couple years of hard beating to open it up. Totally different instrument now. I'll never give it up.