Thomann Irish Bouzouki M1089

I have long wanted to try out a bouzouki but have been put off by the very high price tags. I was a little dubious that this, being cheaper than most other zouks online, would be poor quality and produce a questionable sound. Now, I'm sure this sounds dreadful compared to a top quality specialised instrument handcrafted by a master luthier... but for the price, it's a decent little instrument!

It sounds good, though the lower pair of strings are in octave pairings rather than unison. - if you prefer the latter though, you can easily buy some d'addario unison strings from Thomann to replace those provided. But still, the sound is pleasant for the cost and the tuners are surprisingly good at holding their tune. While the construction quality isn't obviously going to rival handcrafted models at extremely high prices, it is actually quite pleasing and good quality for the price of our chase. Overall a nice little zouk for the price and an ideal starting instrument if you're not sure whether the zouk is the instrument for you yet :-)

As I only play acoustic, and I wanted to try the Irish Bouzouki, I went for this model. After a few days I can give an opinion. I really like the looks and the sound. Low strings are in unison. When tuning the instrument it is important to set the exact position of the bridge, so that the 12th fret is perfectly in tune. If you play other stringed instruments the learning curve is faster than you expect, thanks to the tutorials on YouTube. In the description there was no gig bag, but it was in the box, so maybe Thomann should change this detail... Action is a little high, but I'll wait for the instrument to settle before I work on it.

To start I can say little about how it sounds, but considering I have seen the same model being played before, to my untrained ear and very inexperienced fingers it sounds amazing.

Quality wise, If you handed the instrument to me and told me it cost several times what I paid for it I would believe it entirely. Its amazing that something this nice can be made for the price. Very much looking forward to learning how to play this properly.

Also a note on shipping, I am, extremely impressed with how well it was packed, it traveled 8000km to get to my door and arrived without a single issue.