Rogue RM-100A A-Style Mandolin, Sunburst

 A Great Buy at Forty Dollars
As an accomplished pianist and decent guitarist, I was not expecting much for forty dollars. It is a much better product than I expected. It has become a bit of a game having other musicians guess how much I paid for it. They consistently guess in the $150-$250 range. It has a beautiful finish and a good sound to it.

The only negatives were that the action was ridiculously high (what's the point of an adjustable bridge when the lowest setting is half an inch off the strings??) and the strings were a little dead sounding. With some aggressive sanding of the bridge and a new set of strings, it sounds good and plays great.

 Awesome Instrument
This is a wonderful instrument,it is very well built.I was completely suprised when I opened it.It is much better than what I was expecting.I'am very happy I purchased this product

 Great Value
I've been playing guitar for a few years and wanted to try playing mandolin. I bought this one because I didn't want to spend too much money just in case I didn't like playing it. I was a bit weary buying it because I've read quite a few complaints about it, but I figured $30 was a small gamble so I took a chance. It paid off for the most part. The tone is good, it's very loud, and the finish is beautiful. My only complaint is that it doesn't stay in tune worth a damn so I had to spend another $15 to buy new tuners for it. I didn't have any problems with the bridge like some other people have. In fact, the action and the intonation was set up perfectly right out of the box, and there's room to make adjustments if needed.

Overall, I think this is a great value, good quality instrument, as long as your prepared to maybe have to spend a few extra dollars and cents on it.

 Perfect budget instrument
I just received one of these as a present and agree, this an amazing quality instrument for the price, almost embarassing.
Intonation is proper at the 12th fret, and for the price is unbeatable.

The tall bridge is the only caveat, which makes the action too high. I used a dremel tool to reshape mine with great results. A simpler solution is to buy a quality aftermarket bridge online, which are priced higher than the mandolin itself...!

NOTE: for a few dollars more, you can get this with a matching soft case and 2 instruction books...just do a search on it.

 Pros and Cons
For $39.99 you might as well get one. Here's some things to evaluate.
- The sunburst finish on the one I bought was awesome. It was better than some really high dollar mandolins.
- The action was higher than I like and there isn't much room to adjust. It's OK right now, but in months or years to come, this will probably get worse.
- There is NO adjustable truss rod. Once this baby goes out of whack, you're gonnas have to toss it or turn it into a project to try to retrofit an adjustable truss rod and get some more life out of it.
- As with any new mandolin, it takes a few iterations to tune it since once you get through the one pair of strings, then the previous ones need adjusting again until there is the right tension on the top via the bridge. But once it's in tune, it holds pretty well.
- The tuning keys are actually much better than I expected. Comparing to other beginning mandos, this is easier to turn the tuning hardware compared my more expensive beginner with the adjustable truss rod.
- the all important sound. It sounds good. it's about the same as the other more expensive beginner brand.

Comparing to the price of other beginner models, you can buy 4 of these for the price of the other popular beginner model. So, buy a few, use one and put the other in the closet. When one goes bad, ditch it an break out another one.

 Stay away
I went to Musician's Friend distribution warehouse showroom since they are in KC. I thought how could you go wrong with 39.95? I looked at 5 of these and they all had necks that dropped down away from the strings where it joins the body. That made the action way too high. Volume sounded low and tone was not full. On a positive note, the finsh was nice. It was a nice looking "toy", but it was not worth playing. I left and found a Kentucky A type mandolin for $150. It had awesome tone and volume. Just goes to show you, you get what you pay for. Unfortunately, this Rogue isn't worth the $40 they want. I would pay $20 and give it to my kid, but it's not even good enough for a beginner.

All of the Rogue instruments I have looked at are very bad quality. The necks on all their acoustic guitars I have seen need resetting out of the box, unless you like playing with the strings an inch above the fretboard.

Spend the extra money and buy a real instrument. Stay away from these mandolins and buy a Kentucky if you are a beginner.