danville 30 Bracket Reviews

danville 30 Bracket submitted 9/29/2008 Submitter Skip2007 (see all reviews from this person) Where Purchased Ray Hill Audio (Ebay) Year Purchased 2008 Price Paid 169.95 ($US) Sound Once properly setup, the sound volume and tone is surprisingly good. 30 bracket heads need less tension per bracket than 18 or 24, so its easy to overtighten the head. Shipped with light/medium gauge strings. Once I got this dialed in, it has only slight less bottom end and resonance than my BB-250 with a cast brass tone ring. As a banjo newbie, I can't pick worth a darn, but I can make the instrument sound good (guitar dweeb). The common cast aluminum pot used in these is popular for a reason - they work when properly setup, and are cheap. Sound Rating 9 Setup Out of the box, this instrument was good to go, mostly. I don't know if the dealer set it up or not (don't think so). String action is set low (my taste), neck is straight and tight. Brackets needed to be tightened/tuned. Intonation needed to be adjusted (bridge placement). Truss rod is adjustable, tailpiece basic but adjustable and functional. A word about tuners - these "guitar style" tuners work well. At 14:1 ratio, easy to find tune and they stay put. Not bluegrass "cool", but they work better than the planetaries on my other banjos. There was a problem with the armrest, which I discuss down below. Setup Rating 7 Appearance Fit and finish is excellent all around. Neck appears to be lauan mahogany (like most mahogany guitars and banjos), attractively stained. Foot and peghead are blended to black, all coated with a flawless clearcoat. Pot is buffed to bright metal above the cast-in flange. Fingerboard is a bound east indian rosewood set with the standard snowflake inserts, and is well made. The resonator is basic but well finished with a good looking mahogany veneer, clean binding and a flawless deep clearcoat. Appearance Rating 9 Reliability This banjo is solid as a rock. The mahogany neck and the aluminum pot keeps it light, the neck fastens tightly to the pot and all of it appears well made. The finish on the wood parts is about as durable as it gets.This banjo is well suited for active kids, to take to camp, or to enjoy at home without worrying about the investment. Doesn't have enough cool factor for gigging, but would get the job done in competent hands. I think the tuners would hold tune better than most planetaries. Reliability Rating 9 Customer Service Haven't had to deal with the retailer. The brand is a house brand of a fairly large east coast distributor, and its Asian made, but the parts are standard and in common use by many American companies. The instrument was very well packed, double boxed (doesn't come with either a case or gig bag) and suffered no ill effects from shipping. I rated service based on shipping - no other service has been required. Customer Service 9 Components Over all the banjo uses basic but solid components that should hold up well. There was one serious difficulty: The arm rest would not tighten to the brackets, no matter what. On closer inspection the cause was the mounting screw - it was too long, and would hit the pot before the clamp tightened. Trimming the screw didn't help - the length is very critical, since this banjo uses flat style brackets and there is not much room to clamp the rest. Also, the screw is metric, so finding an alternative wasn't easy. Solution (and here come the advantage of the aluminum pot) - remove the armrest clamp and screw entirely. Drill the pot where the screw needs to go between the brackets, tap and thread for a 10-32/24 allen head bolt. The pot is thick enough to allow this and it works slick. Components Rating 8 Overall Comments Other than the issue I had with the armrest, this is a great banjo for the price. The pot is used by many manufacturers and when properly set up, gives the instrument good banjo sound. Most of the complaints about aluminum potted banjos (at least using this pot) I believe are misplaced. The instrument is stable, playable, light and fun. Take the resonator off and its a perfectly acceptable open-back to frail with. I'd be upset if someone stole this cheapie, its an easy banjo to like. Overall Rating 9