Mike's Oud Forums

Ali Khalifeh & Sons - Help Me on a Purchase?

permanentnovice - 5-23-2013 at 08:41 AM

Esteemed Oudists,

Advice on this? I might pick it up today.

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/msg/3823995364.html

Brian Prunka - 5-23-2013 at 08:56 AM

These are generally poorly-made ouds, but occasionally one has potential for a decent student instrument; I recently came across one that sounded surprisingly good and just needed new pegs and a new nut to be a pretty good student oud.

The pegs will need to be changed, they are generally from garbage wood and have an very steep taper (closer to a cone than a cylinder) that makes it very difficult to keep it in tune. The ones I've seen recently also have a pretty much unusable nut made out of something that looks like balsa wood.

I would say if he would sell it to you for $80 and it sounds okay and the action is not crazy high, it might be worth it if you know someone who can fix it up or are handy yourself and think you could do it. At $180, I think it is overpriced a bit.