[posternutbag]

I have owned two and played a couple of more. If you understand what they are and you know what you want, they can be a lifetime mandolins.

In particular the M11 and the M4 are really nice sounding. The only one I have played that I didn't really like had walnut back and sides. It sounded like an open back banjo, bright, metallic and sustain measured in nanoseconds.

OTOH I had an M11 and loved the tone. Not a bluegrass sound, but warm with good projection.

I had another, I think an M1 which was also a nice instrument. Again, it wouldn't hold up in a bluegrass jam; it just doesn't have the woof or crack in the chop, but for playing fiddle tunes it is just fine. It would also be a fine classical mandolin if you put flat wounds on it.

I don't have a bad thing to say about them. That they aren't bluegrass instruments isn't really a knock on them so much as a recognition that very few instruments can do everything well.