The Loar LM-110 Honey Creek BRB

This is a very good mandolin for its price. I tried it out in the store and I loved it.
It holds its tune well, and plays like a charm. One problem I found is that the intonation is a little off, but this can be fixed if you know what you're doing or if you know a luthier.
I would recommend it to everyone who loves the mandolin.

Also the strap lock/knob is completely terrible. I tried three different straps, and none fitted on there. Eventually It broke off, 5 days after purchasing.

I was new to playing the mandolin when I purchased this item, so this review is after having done a lot of practice, and I have played other mandolins in order to compare (including an Eastman oval hole, and a professional luthier hand made instrument).

The tone is really good for an instrument in this price range, although I did swap out the stock strings for some flat-wounds, which worked well for me. This took a little of the brightness off, but it left a lovely rich quality to the tone of mandolin, which has a pleasing solidity and warmth to it, and there was still that typical mandolin "sweetness" to the upper end. As might be expected in this price range, the weakest string is the lowest G string, but otherwise, the tone is pretty even.

The finish is adequate - no major issues, and the matt texture of the finish "probably" contributes to the sound and feel of playing in a good way. I found that I had to very gently file a sharp corner off the "nut" on the e-string side because I kept catching my index finger on it.

The tuning pegs are "ok" - not the easiest to fine tune, but they do hold pitch well.

In terms of out of the box setup, the bridge was really not positioned correctly, so you may need to be ready to do a little re-positioning in order for the upper notes to play in tune. Maybe I was unlucky... but this is easily fixed. The adjustable height on the bridge itself means you can get a half decent setup with little effort.

Bin überwiegend Heimanwender und wollte einfach mal einen Vergleich zur sehr günstigen F-Style von HB - man merkt den Unterschied. Ich hab die Seiten nicht maximal tief eingestellt und hatte mit den mitgelieferten Saiten etwas Problem mit einem Scheppern, wobei die Saiten nicht schlecht sind. Jetzt hab ich dieselben Flatwound von DAddario wie auf der HB drauf und bin zufrieden. Lauter als die HB, klarer vom Klang, durch die Saitenwahl aber vor Allem bei den G-Saiten deutlich dumpfer als vorher. Verarbeitung ohne jede Beanstandung, auch die f-Löcher sind innen sauber, ohne Spreisel. Mechaniken sind gut handlebar und halten. Bundenden wurden "entschärft". Ich finde die Loar optisch sehr gelungen, besonders durch das matte Finish. Als sehr zufriedener Besitzer zweier "Billig-Manolinen" frag ich mich nur, was mich erwarten würde, wenn ich mal ein 3000-6000,- € Instrument in die Hand nehmen würde... was geht da?