Quote Originally Posted by magoo
... For the price washburn has some real nice Guitars and Mandolins, you get good quality Instruments for the price of cheaper guitars.
+1, magoo : I've had a number of Washburn & Oscar Schmidt acoustics & electrics. At this point, these 3 diverse instruments fill roles in my bag o' tricks:

Simply-put, a great Korean-made chambered semi-solid mahogany body/solid spruce top nylon string acoustic/electric, the NV100C is meant to be a plug n' play for direct recording or live apps. With sealed gear/adjustable tension tuners you don't often find on a classical, a bolt-on adjustable pitch neck, contoured back & heel and a B-Band A3.2 preamp/UST, with surprising unplugged volume & tone, essentially because of the bridge design, similar to a Tacoma. I A-B'd it against an Ibanez Exotic Wood (Bubinga body) thin-bodied classical last week, & the Chinese Ibanez failed miserably. This was under $500 new:


I'd had an Oscar Schmidt A-style a/e mando that ran about $150, but moved up to this superb all-solid wood (maple & spruce) Korean-made F-style Mando, the M6SW "Jethro Burns" model. Less than $700 new. I've A-B'd it against a Gibson at 3X the price, and the Gibson loses in volume and tone:


Oscar Schmidt, the 'economy' brand of the Washburn/US Music family, makes great Ukuleles. If anyone is thinking of plinking one of these little guys, this Indonesian all Koa (laminate) OU-6 Tenor model replaced a smaller Koa/spruce (laminate) Chinese model I'd had, the OU-3. Less than $250 new, the longer scale of the tenor is easier to handle and gives more range:


These 3 quality instruments for a total of around $1,400 pack a tremendous bang for the buck.