Bean Blossom BB-250 Reviews

Bean Blossom BB-250 submitted 9/29/2008 Submitter Skip2007 (see all reviews from this person) Where Purchased Axe 'n Gear Year Purchased 2008 Price Paid 499 ($US) Sound The Morgan Monroe/Bean Blossom BB-250 is an affordable bluegrass 5 string banjo with a cast brass tone ring, and this sucker is heavy. The effect of the cast tone ring is readily apparent, and with heavy strings will pound out a tune. With light strings, its tamer, but there is good range and clarity. In skilled hands and good attention to setup this will perform. String choice appears to be important in the sound character. Sound Rating 9 Setup To be fair to the dealer, who was just getting into banjos, he really didn't know what to do with setup and frankly I'm glad he didn't try. However, that is the good news. The bad news is, out of the case, this instrument was a disaster. It came with quite heavy strings, set very high. As it turned out, it was almost impossible to setup, which I'll discuss in components. If the rest of the inventory is like this one, a shop tuner can expect to spend hours getting this set up. The 5th string pip was not set to the correct height - took me quite a while to work out a bad howl off the 5th string 5th fret. Setup Rating 3 Appearance The BB-250 has an attractive minimalist look about it which will appeal to those who are put off by the gaudy tackiness of many of the over-inlaid instruments out there. The simple offset fret dots, low luster dark walnut finish suggests more a working instrument than a showpiece. On the one hand its plain, on another, its simply understated. I did some cosmetic upgrades which personalized it - added gold tuners, brackets, resonator clamps and a gold clamshell tailpiece. The additions added a bit of pizzazz and it looks good. Gold-filled the stock engraved armrest. The metal parts appear to be nickel plated, not chrome. Tarnishing might be an issue. Finish of the wood parts was acceptable. I'm not sure how I feel about the low luster finish, but it seems durable enough. Appearance Rating 7 Reliability This banjo uses many stock parts common to Asian made banjos, so reliability will be the same as is the case for most of the banjos in the general marketplace. Many of these parts are easily replaced if needed, so on a price per performance basis, it should be fine. Stock aftermarket parts seem to be interchangeable. The least well made part of the banjo is the pot. The resonator attachment lugs screw directly into the resonator shell without benefit of a threaded liner. This is an unnecessarily cheap shortcut which will cause trouble over time likely. Rated due to neck/pot issues described below. Reliability Rating 4 Customer Service Within a couple of days of getting it, the 5th string pip split. Since I have no local supplier for these, I contacted Morgan Monroe, who promptly sent out replacements. Below I talk about a problem, that, if I lived in the US, would have resulted in my asking for a replacement instrument. To be fair to Morgan Monroe, I haven't brought this particular issue up with them, due the high cost of shipping, and my ability to make the repair myself. The instrument doesn't come with an owner's manual. It should, especially in regard to basic setup. Most of the info on the web about coordinator rod setup appears to be just plain wrong. Not everybody has a capable shop at hand for banjos. Customer Service 9 Components This instrument is an early release in the BB-250 production line, and by now I would hope some things would have changed. This instrument was assembled by hand by someone with no skill with hand tools. Period. The finish work on the fretboard was amateurish and careless - sanding scratches that took some work to clean up. When I replaced the 5th string pip, I noticed that the pip had had its notch cut in the instrument - you could see a saw cut in the fret ahead of it. Not serious, but careless. The reason I could not set this banjo up was because the coordinator holes and neck screws were so poorly and inaccurately placed, the upper coordinator rod succeeded in pulling the neck screw out of the neck. The factory (or somebody) repaired this by puttying in the neck screw and shimming the neck. When I tried to lower the action, the screw kept pulling loose. It took substantial repair to the neck to get the neck screw secured. When I reassembled the banjo, I needed a shim to correctly center the neck (neck screw holes drilled crooked, neck screws installed crooked), but didn't need the shim for action height. Now that its back together it seems to be holding fine, the coordinator rods will now work as they're supposed to to set the action. The tone ring is not a particularly good fit to the pot, but is adequate (and may be no worse than most mass-produced banjos with cast rings). While the pot and neck are supposed to be maple, its not a particularly hard specie. Components Rating 3 Overall Comments Its taken a lot of work to get this banjo to be what its capable of. The quality issues are unusual given the superb quality of Morgan Monroe's guitars. ( I have an MM M-10, which is just superb). A bit more care in assembly would have prevented all of this. If the assembly issues can be eliminated, then I think this banjo is an exceptional value. Hopefully this instrument is not representative of the line, because I think there is a good market for it. For a buyer, check that the action is acceptable and the neck is tight to the pot. If the neck wiggles just a bit, try another - it must be tight. Examine the fretboard and fretwork. If it passes muster, then you have a bargain. If Morgan Monroe now has these issues in hand then I would rate this a 9, not a 5. Overall Rating 5