Ibanez M510OVS Acoustic Mandolin in Vintage Sunburst

This is a short neck Mandolin, meaning the neck meets the body at the twelfth fret instead of the fifteenth. I did need to adjust the bridge to intonate it, but you always have to do that with any New Mandolin (there are hundreds of videos on Youtube that show you how to do it, it's easy to do). I chose the model with a satin finish as I believe that high gloss finishes on Mandolins have a dampening effect on the sound. The Mandolin came with light guage strings on it which seem appropriate for a short neck Mandolin. But I'm sure you could put a heavier guage set of strings on it without any problems. I get a nice clean sound that projects very well for a Mandolin at this price level. Plus it plays well. The nut on this Mandolin is 30mm wide, which is about 1/16" wider than most Mandolins. This Mandolin also comes with a truss rod, which you usually don't find on lower cost Mandolins. This would be an excellent Mandolin for a beginner or an intermediate. Plus it would be great for anyone who wants an inexpensive Mandolin to play around on (like me). I have tried other inexpensive Mandolin's and this is the best that I have found for the money. I'm very happy with my purchase and highly recommend it.

Beautifu! The finish is absolutely gorgeous and much better than expected. Mandolin sounds wonderful too. Bought as a gift for my husband for Christmas and it was very well received. As a guitar player he found this Mandolin to be easy to play, comfortable and a very good quality. Shipping was quick, everything was well padded and mandolin was delivered in excellent condition.

I am new to the mandolin and have found this to be a superb instrument. I am taking lessons and my teacher also liked my choice. It came quickly and was well secured in the package.

"So Russell... what do you love about music?" Russell: "To begin with, everything ".OMG, who doesn't love the last scene from "Almost Famous". haha. So anyway to begin with......, I am in no way, shape or form a mandolin player. I've played acoustic & electric guitar for several years and thought what the heck, lets branch out and get a mandolin. The very first acoustic guitar that I bought (in 1977) was a gorgeous dreadnought all blonde body, maple neck Ibanez Concord. Loved it. So when I saw the Ibanez Mandolin I trusted the brand and it was a no-brainer. The Mandolin. Its a crazy little instrument. I've only had it for 2 days, I looked up a chord chart and it is so foreign from guitar chords but I'm having fun with it which was the whole point of this purchase.Anyway I digress.My review of the actual instrument also includes looking at it from it's price point.You get what you pay for, so I will say, it is a cheap mandolin, but that is not say that I do not like it.The build quality - It's good (considering the price point).I got the matte finish, which I really like. it may look a little cheap, but consider the price point.The Neck.... The neck itself is good, no adjustments needed. If I wanted to be critical, the frets could use a little sanding, the edges are just a bit rough, but again, it is totally playable the way it is. I will probably use this as a practice instrument and experiment with sanding/filing the frets down and then if needed maybe re-crowning them too. The other thing which is totally foreign to me is having a floating bridge/saddle. The one main knock I have is that the bridge/saddle definitely needs work, it is not sitting nicely on the body. It will need some sanding and setup along with lowering the action of the strings. I haven't taken a good look at the nut, so I'm not sure if that will need some adjustment/filing. It doesn't sound too bad out of the box, a little dead, but I have new strings on order. Going to take the old strings off, sand and adjust the saddle/bridge to sit snug against the body and hopefully that should really improve the resonance. We'll see. I guess the long and short of it is, If you are looking for an inexpensive mandolin to start off with, I don't see how you can go wrong with this one. And it looks so damn cute sitting next to my guitars, it's like they just got a little brother. :)*** 8/9/2021 Update***So I sanded the bridge so it sits flush on the body and put a new set of D'addario strings on. The sound is better but I still need to work on the action, anything past the 12th fret and its dead. So I have some more work to do on it. The good thing is that I am having fun playing it.

Awesome mandolin for the price, it needed new strings but that is pretty typical of new instruments.

It came in, packed very well ,almost ready to play, tuned it up sounds and plays great.

Once I brought the instrument to a music shop and paid them $110 to set the bridge, the mandolin played wonderfully. It would simply have been nice if the seller made me aware that it wasn't playable out of the box. There was a piece of Styrofoam material placed between the body and the bridge that needed to be removed plus the bridge itself needed to be shaped by a luthier in order for it to make contact with the body. The listing also stated that the instrument would come with a case but it did not. A case for this instrument will cost me an additional $80 or so. Just a terrible experience.

Sound is great for the price.