Leaderboard

I’d say yes to a point. We seem to have come a long way from the Marlin Sidewinder etc

Thanks Graham, that's really helpful. I have ended up buying a used budget one (Stagg) in the hope that it will give me enough of an experience to see if I will like it, should be here in a few days. I am also a little worried that my guitarist sausage fingers will struggle on the smaller fretboard, they certainly did on smaller ukuleles. According to one of the manolin forums, anything under £1000 seems to be classed as budget and I am not prepared to spend that much. I will have a look for the mandola, that sounds like it could be a good option too.

I’ve no experience on the HB mandolin but have had a Tanglewood and a Washburn which were both pretty good. Like most instruments you get what you pay for. As a bassist and guitarist I found the mandolin neck really tight and therefore difficult to fret. In the end I bought an Octave Mandolin (usually known as an octave mandola in the U.K.) which is the same tuning as a mandolin only an octave lower and with a lot more fretting space.