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The banjo reviews database is here to help educate people before they purchase an instrument. Of course, this is not meant to be a substitute for playing the instrument yourself!

7163 reviews in the archive.

Backyard Music fireside kit Banjo Reviews

Submitted by mdm54 (see all reviews from this person) on 2/12/2013

Where Purchased: ebay

Year Purchased: 2013
Price Paid: 109 ($US)

Sound

nice and quiet . But the tone is clear as a bell . You will not believe the sound quailty of this fireside. I compared it to my Gretsch
dixie 5 sting openback . The the fireside wins in tone quality. The Dixie
has a muddier cloudy sound but louder. Now im no expert but I do own
11 other guitars and have a good idea of tone . IF I Want more volume,
I plug in my audix i5 mic and use a cheap art tube preamp that goes into a 5 watt Vox tube AC4tv amp. All the volume I can stand.

Sound Rating: 10

Setup

no setup its a kit. but the action was too high after glued up. So I sanded
the bridge down to lower action. There was was one high fret that had to be sanded fret 17 location and the tuner head shape made it difficult to locate tuners. they did'nt leave enough wood on the tuner head. poor
workmanship on that. but that did not effect the sound. I would have prferred they left the tuner head alone and not sanded the contour.

Setup Rating: 8

Appearance

looks great , I used caseys true oil for finish. The only manufacture flaw was the careless head shaping by not leaving enough wood to mount tunners. So I had to position tuners to get the scews to line up. I did not call the company about this so they may have replaced the neck. Its only a $109 banjo so what do you expect.

Appearance Rating: 9

Reliability

I was concerned about the lack of a truss rod in the neck so im not sure how it will hold up under tension over time .The lack of truss rod may contribute however to the excellent tone. The gear tuners are ok
Not too much could go wrong over the long hall. Its a very simple design
simple in a good way . perfect!
Somebody put alot thought in the design very original.

Reliability Rating: 9

Customer Service

Dont know have not called them. But others say its excellent

Customer Service: not rated

Components

The neck is very good , frets were finished better than my import les paul standard. Solid Mahagany neck Fantastic! the frets mount right on the neck itself so it has no tone robing lamanate here. The pot is made
of some type of resin card board so I would imagine wood may improve that. Had to cut cost somewhere.

Components Rating: 8

Overall Comments

Its all about the tone with this. beautiful wood tone. Excellent design.
workmanship lacks in some areas but for the price that is to be expected. the 5th string brass scew nut was drilled at a wrong angle and it prevented the scew nut from being seated all the way down.It hit on the fret and I had to file the end of the fret to get it to work. However I like the banjo! you better get one while they are still cheap

Overall Rating: 9