Richwood All Solid Master Series RMA-110-VS / RMA-90-NT

[momo_280]

Hello
has somebody ever played one (or both) of the two Richwood mandolins All Solid Master Series RMA-110-VS or RMA-90-NT?
They are both full solid. The RMA-90-NT has a slightly deeper body than usual.
There is also the Richwood RMA-110-VS A-Style full solid.
All three are very inexpensive considering they are full solid mandolins. Ok, I guess they do not have a handcarved top but ... I`m only curious.
Any experiences?

[Andrea Laudicina]

Happy owner of an RMA-110-VS here - I bought one less than a month ago.

I'm marking this post for I will jot a detailed review ASAP. To date, short of the usual nonexistent setup and few very minor and easily addressed shortcomings, my opinion is surely "positive plus plus". I'll hit this discussion again soon. The only bottom line bit I feel like expressing right now is, Richwood instruments are probably the latest advancement in Chinese manufacturing since long.

No question, quality is there hardware included (bridge, tuners, tailpiece). But, take this as a warning, this mandolin is luthier ready so to speak, not musician ready. As a luthier myself, a bit of nuisances won't surely put me off nor off guard. The smooth grained spruce and figured maple, although not as spectacular as on instruments costing ten times more, speak volumes. The fine grained, shallow-radiused ebony fretboard and modern size fretwire is another nice feature. All in all the key features of every pro A5 style mandolins are there so is the tone, bold and resonant, albeit with bridge base unfit I only allowed myself to about fifteen minutes of sustained playing to avoid putting dips on the top - I saw that happen too many times and restoring to a perfect dome an arched top mangled by illfitting bridge feet is actually feasible yet it's a real chore.

More to follow... Words, pictures and maybe a video. Cheers!

[HoGo]

I have setup two new Richwood mandolins in the past, one was lower model other was the most expensive at the time, I don't remember what style numbers but I'm pretty sure they were not carved but rather pressed wood top and back (that gets described as "solid wood" in descriptions of arch top instruments). One of them sounded OK, other was quite weak and both of them required lot of work to setup correctly - fret hammering/gluing leveling, nut work and bridge refitting etc.

[Andrea Laudicina]

In a way your impressions match with mine, not for nothing I wrote «luthier ready»... Now you didn't disclose how far is "in the past": months, years? I don't know if and when Richwood changed its workmanship level. Reading around the web I seem to understand that they boosted quality standards about a decade ago when the name was much less recognised, and the few reports I read were about guitars only. I'll just tell you I bought this mandolin without trying it, straight from an online store, after reading specs and looking at pictures so I'm not aware of the average degree of detail work on other examples. But global geometry, construction style complying with A5 specs (elevated fretboard extension, plates' thickness, angles, shallow yet substantial recurves, peghead backstrap etc.) are dead on. High gloss poly finish, thin and very well done.

Sure thing the factory just hints at setup without completing one single job among the many required - that accounts for the modest retail price. As an example, take the average A5 copy of equivalent grade made by Eastman, the full featured MD805: apart from being setup at the factory, which may account for a higher retail price, it comes with a different tailpiece and includes the modern abbreviated fingerrest, other specs being equal apart from hand carving. Check respective prices and think about such a huge disproportion. Then go down the line and consider their entry level MD305, an excellent instrument yet stripped of many minor features like binding on body top, bottom, neck and peghead, sporting inferior tuners and satin finish. Again compare retail prices and tell me I've been unwise buying this Richwood, which soon will go thru a full setup in my own workshop. I would have refrained from such a purchase if the specs didn't convince me firsthand.

Part of the answer may be that Eastman is a recognised name among Asian builders while Richwood is still rated among the many anonymous Pac-rim brands churning out instruments of varying quality. Without going any deeper I won't praise nor despise the brand. They may have some flaws here and there and maybe won't deserve much attention so I don't feel like recommending them hands down. OTOH the same attention allowed me to spot a potential gem among their mandolins - their top-of-the-line F models looks promising as well and if I didn't buy a RMF-225-HB is only because I already own three F style mandolins.

To tell one bridge fitting is time consuming, cannot be achieved by machine work, requires a bridge jig to keep the base from rocking, good abrasives, and a very firm hand to top it off. Of course it needs at least a good bridge to begin with, of correct profile, made from quality hardwoods. An archtop mandolin top isn't a slice of a perfect sphere so moving the feet lengthwise won't ensure an airtight fit, just eats wood while approaching the actual top's outline at best. The job is to be performed crosswise, replacing the abrasive strip at least twice with progressively finer grits. The stock ebony bridge has correct shape and proportions and its feet contour isn't far from a perfect fit: a cigarette paper slips under the feet at the ends and by a lesser degree about halfway under the side facing the tailpiece. Saddle notches may benefit from a bit of refinement as well yet they're aren't that coarsely made as found on cheap rosewood bridges on most entry level mandolins.

I don't believe plates have been heat pressed given their thickness, about the same of my hand carved F5 copy. My educated guess was that they may have been CNC routed then finished by hand. I took a glance at the innards with my articulated mirror, the factory did a clean job indeed and what I saw at both neck and tailpiece blocks confirmed my guess. Also I've seen better tone bar graduation on other mandolins but again they're not that bad.

The gently radiused ebony fretboard with MOTS position markers is straight albeit frets only have been set and coarsely planed without being properly dressed so they still need fine crowning and buffing to mirror gloss. A minor flaw, not a real one, is the fretless 'florida' extension which could have been scooped much deeper, but again nothing to worry about for lowering and smoothing the too-shallow transition below 24th fret is an easy job. Nut is made from good quality bone with string notches presumably made with just two file gauges in the face of the four required - action at the nut is rather conservative and that's okay too because I will displace the nut in order to adjust spacing which seems too wide in relation to fretboard, set correct height, file excess material and give it a good polishing. Tuners, with pearlescent buttons and adjustable grip, work smoothly. Stock strings are phosphor bronze wound, medium gauge.

Honestly I was expecting a fancier flaming on the back but I can't complain either, and neck's maple is even better. Neck profile is slimmer than my vintage Ibanez yet thicker than my decade old all-solid, hand carved Avanthage, another hidden gem which is my main stage tool by now.

Let's get to the gist... Sound. For the time being - i.e. until a proper setup job will be done - the only thing a golden-eared purist could criticize is, so to speak, anonimity - take into account that this instrument is brand new. Still unripe as it is, with less than perfect fretwork and illfitting bridge put in place for a very short time following unboxing in order to make my mind about the instrument's potential or lack thereof, I hear a broad, resonant tone, well balanced from string to string and plain loud giving clean notes up to the last fret and robust, dry chop. After a few minutes' stretching strings steadied so I could confirm correct intonation. The Allen style solid tailpiece may or may not be an improvement over the traditional Gibson style but surely it's a welcome feature. More to come...

[HoGo]

Those two Richwood mandolins were brought to me by a local folkie perhaps 4-5 years ago. She bought them online new but couldn't play them because of poor (non-existent) factory setup.
One was just like yours, natural finish spruce/maple A but with nicer flamed maple. The top was uniformly ~4mm thick at the f holes and supported by heavy tonebars. The other was spruce/mahogany f style. That one migh have been carved as it sounded way better than the A, but my memory says the A style gave me impression of pressed solid wood. Now that I look at pics of the F style on producers site it looks like f is carved but I've seen some mandolins where they added wedge of wood under the scroll of pressed plate and carved the ridge to mimic fully carved.
Most chinese manufacturers seem to be well aware of marketing difference between just solid and solid and carved, sometimes even specifying solid hand-carved to show that they were not machine carved.
Anyway they can differ from piece to piece just like any other factory instrument. One can be very good other marginally OK.