Lintfree - 8-21-2007 at 04:22 AM
I went to Lark In The Morning up in Ft. Bragg California to check out the Sandii Turkish ouds they had there because I was in the neighborhood and had
never played one. There were 5 of them: one $800. model and four $1100. models. David Brown and I tuned them all up and compared them. The workmanship
was good; a few very minor cosmetic flaws in the pickguard department. I picked one out for a friend of mine and eventually had it sent home. A
beautiful grade AAA spruce top and a bowl of two kinds of mahogany. A nice wide neck at the nut. It was very loud but a bit hollow sounding.
According to Udi Hrant a new oud should be played as much as possible when it's first strung up to "break it in" so I played it for two days as much
as I could. The hollow sound went away. Now it sounds fantastic.
They shipped it in a SOFT case in a heavy cardboard box with styrofoam popcorn shipping material and it arrived in perfect condition. Not a bad deal
at all.
Microber - 8-21-2007 at 08:51 AM
Do you have pictures of both models (800$ and 1100$)?
Here you can see pictures of mine
Robert
Lintfree - 8-22-2007 at 12:57 AM
Hi Robert -
The oud you show is probably the next model up from the one I have. The bowl is the same with the same two woods. The rosettes on mine are more
simple. Mine does not have the extended fingerboard. They were good sounding instruments, all the Sandii ouds I played and they all had a similar
tone, a kind of aggressive open sound even on the treble strings. I don't have a picture of the oud I have but I can take a few. I think they are a
good deal for the price. John Berberian recommended them and that's why I tried them out. Sandii ouds also have a tapered fingerboard which means that
rather than do a neck set when the action gets high the fingerboard can be shaved down. There are few people who can do a real neck set on an oud but
it's easy for most guitar repair people to re-flatten the fingerboard.