Review: 2025 Vangoa A Style Mandolin (sunburst)

2025 Vangoa A Style Mandolin (sunburst)

When guitar players on the internet talk about the resale value of instruments, one thing that's not mentioned as much is that, in my experience, the easiest instrument to get and then trade off or sell are inexpensive banjos and mandolins. 

I think one reason is because they make perfect second instruments and a lot of guitarists are always looking for an instrument that they can apply their string instrument skills to in order to diversify their sound. Mandolins in particular can be bought for as low as 60 bucks for one that can be actually played. That's not something I could have said about a cheap mandolin in the seventies.

That being said, I have to say that I've owned half a dozen in my life from a very inexpensive Rogue to a 1910 Gibson and some in between like the 1949 Martin. In most cases the mandolins were “A Style” of which there are a variety of shapes but generally have a round or oval hole as opposed to the type that have F holes like a violin and are especially popular for bluegrass.

The companies that make inexpensive banjos and mandolins sort of come and go and there's a lot of what they call “internet brands” that distribute primarily through online sites. Vangoa instruments are one of those that have become common and as a whole their reputation is very good. This brand could be said to be on the higher end of the low end, in other words not quite as cheap as, say an older Rogue at 60 bucks (though my estimate on that one is in 1990s dollars,) but not as good as an old Gold Star, etc.

I've said in other reviews that one reason why inexpensive instruments are so good these days is because companies have had over 50 years to perfect the manufacture of inexpensive instruments. Not much changes in the design so they basically do the same thing over and over again and successive companies do the same and certain economies come into place, like CNC machining, etc and so a $100 mandolin now would be probably much better than an equivalent back in the 80s.

I remember seeing a documentary on mountain music and one of the younger players was very proud of the fact that he had built his own mandolin out of maple and it was very obvious that he understood how to make that instrument because it looked perfect. He then played it and I guess unless you're a cork sniffer or expert on bluegrass, and can say otherwise, I have to say that he built a pretty nice mandolin and it sounded great.

That's why in the case of mandolins and banjos, I don't really get into a trip of telling people that they need to spend some minimum amount, the instruments are simpler to build than guitars. I should add that all instruments require good craftsmanship.

The reason I have a Vangoa A style in my collection is that it was given to me for Christmas. Gift instruments stay in my collection for a lot of reasons but most of all they tend to have great sentimental value and the people who bought the instruments took the trouble to research it and find the best value. 

This particular Vangoa costs about $140 and I don't know how it compares to other mandolins that are in the two to 300 range but it is certainly well made. In particular the action came only slightly high and I was able to bring it down by simply lowering the bridge a bit. So high marks to the company for making such a playable mandolin out of the box.

Those who have bought mandolins on the used market, particularly vintage ones, will know that finding a mandolin with excellent playing action isn't a given. The high tension of the strings alone can warp a neck within a few years.

If I were to describe the Vangoa sound, I would say it's a less refined open sound like the old Martin A. That being said, the Gibsons that I've owned in the past tended to have a smoother, richer sound, whereas the Martin reminded me of a small 12 string guitar, particularly because I play in drop tunings even on the mandolin.

I'm not that familiar with the mandolin in normal concert tuning, my preference is always to tune it to about the same tension I would a cuatro which is a 10-string instrument that's popular in the Latin American countries.

As far as those who might buy for bluegrass, which for an A style would probably be more in the realm of old timey or mountain music, they would be better off buying the type with F holes which has the type of sound and projection for that type of music.

While most Bluegrass players might prefer the f hole type, the A does have the requisites of a good mountain instrument which is a wider, richer tone and decent volume. The Vangoa projects very well and has a good decent tone. Sometimes with inexpensive mandolins you get one or the other but not both.

This review does require some description of specs and like a lot of economy mandolins are probably made of whatever the company can get a good price on but as a whole for the 2025 model, the A looks like it has a basswood body with a spruce top. The bridge is walnut and the tailpiece is competent, a more advanced player might prefer a better design but it's adequate.

One thing to remember when getting an inexpensive mandolin is that it's best to play it first because mandolins can develop bad action even in stores. There's not a lot you can do to adjust the action beyond some adjustment at the nut and bridge. If the neck has been pulled up from improper storage or not being sold for a long time in a regular guitar store, that's not something that's going to be fixed easily and certainly not worth repairing on an economy model like the Vangoa.

If you buy one online make sure it's from a company that has a good return policy like Guitar Center. The reason being is at this price range in particular, the neck that you play on is the one you're going to have to live with. 

However, my impression of the mandolin is positive; it seems as good as some mandolins I had in the 80s and 90s, for the reason, like I said, that a few decades down the line the manufacturers of these inexpensive versions have gotten better and better. Also many of these inexpensive instruments are made by companies that do a lot of subcontracting and as a result are quite competent.

If you look on the internet, on Amazon for instance, you can get a mandolin that's cheaper than the Vangoa and for someone who's using it as a second or third instrument it might be better just to spend less but if you do try this brand, my guess is you’ll like it. 

I should also note that this mandolin comes with a very nice gig bag and accessories.

What is definitely striking about these modern mandolins is that some of the problems that you would see in the '80s or even '90s aren't present in this new generation of inexpensive mandolins. So people have said that it's been a golden age for guitars and I think that applies to banjos and mandolins also.

Al Handa

July 12, 2026

Retrospective: 1968 Gibson Country and Western and 1972 Yamaha FG-150'

Retrospective: 1968;Gibson Country and Western and 1972 Yamaha FG-150

I’m going to try out different review formats. There is the “Aftermarket” and this will be a “Retrospective” review, which is the best way to put it, as it’ll be descriptions of classic (and not so classic) instruments. As much as possible, it’ll be about the subject and not my internal stream of consciousness, which doesn’t add very much to the lore and collective knowledge on the Internet.

There are classic acoustic guitars that I didn't own for a great deal of time, like for example, a 1968 Gibson Country And Western, which I owned for about 3 months and ended up trading for a Yamaha and cash (for musician financial reasons). 

The Country And Western is now a highly sought after guitar in the vintage market (and by many players who were turned on to the guitar by celebrities like Sheryl Crow). 

Many of us older players have recollections of vintage guitars that were casually traded or sold because we simply didn't know their future value. Also, there's a lot of vintage instruments that these days have a highly elevated reputation mainly because of their high value as collector items. In the case of the Gibson country western, it was traded for financial reasons and playability issues.

The '70s were a time when tapping a tuning fork and holding it in your teeth to get a concert A note to tune your guitar by was considered sophisticated, so that gives you an idea of what the era could be like back then.

The 1968 Gibson Country Western Acoustic 6 string was the square shoulder model, which in my case had the natural finish. It had a solid spruce top and mahogany back and sides and it still is one of the best sounding guitars I've ever had. 

It was in 1974; I was trading in an 60s Gibson ES-330 which wasn't quite what I needed in terms of electric finger picking and thought an acoustic guitar would be better for solo (unaccompanied) work. That may seem odd to a modern player for someone to start playing finger style with an electric, but my inspirations at that time were Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna and John Cipolina of Quicksilver, both of whom did a lot of finger picking.

The Gibson country western had a sound that, if you want to compare it to a modern guitar, struck me as being kind of similar to the Hummingbird in tone (of course nowadays you can listen to it on YouTube in various configurations and years). 

I found it unsuitable for finger picking, and was warned at the time by the guitar store owner that a finger picker could find the string spacing a little too narrow. That turned out to be the case, the spacing was ideal for playing with a pick, that is to say rhythm guitar and flat picking. I had small hands so I could manage finger style on the Gibson but  it was easy to make mistakes in that tight space.

Also, I used open tunings and it could be difficult to finger a lot of notes and chords. It was more suitable for standard chords as you could simply bar off the position with a single finger; but beyond that you had to be careful because it was easy to accidentally mute a string or two with your fingers. 

I eventually traded it for a less expensive guitar and cash, which is what I needed to do at the time for various reasons. That led me to a lower cost model that I liked quite a bit.

1972 Yamaha FG-150 (Bought used, so model year could be wrong)

The various Yamaha acoustic guitars in the 70s were quite popular and developed a reputation as excellent low cost guitars. Even their high-end offerings were less expensive than the name brand Gibsons and Martins, etc. Those lower cost models filled the gap caused by the increasing price of Takamines, which were considered at the time among many guitar players, the only import that was reasonably comparable to American brands.

That might seem odd to a modern player in 2026 because now there are dozens of guitars in each of the various price ranges but back in the 70s, your choices were considerably more limited. Yamaha and Takamine didn’t have a lot of competition in many areas, as most economy models by the American companies were still relatively high priced.

Like many inexpensive guitars these days, both electric and acoustic, these two were possibly over praised back in the '70s which tended to create the same disagreement that sometimes you hear in guitar forums today. 

The success of the Takamine guitars (and the increasing price of both the new and used models) left a gap in the lower end that Yamaha and later Seagull filled. I could never find a good used Seagull because those tended to have bowed necks. That was one thing about Seagulls back in the seventies; it wasn't easy to find a used one with a straight neck at a good price. That's an anecdotal judgment, of course, but that was my experience at the time in the various used guitar stores, etc., when I tried to find one (one store was selling new ones with noticeable bowed necks). I’m aware that a lot of guitarists loved the Seagull.

The Yamaha FG-150, in terms of playability for a guitarist with small hands, was an improvement over the Gibson Country And Western. The string spacing was wider which made it easier to finger pick. Incidentally, the common phrase in my area of California for that type of guitar was “folk” style or spacing). The actual size was comparable to the Martin triple-0 so it was also a very comfortable instrument.

There are excellent Yamaha sites on the Web that detail the history of those various lines and models, which is a sign that the guitars were and still are highly regarded. The one thing that did keep the Yamaha from being considered equal to American guitars was, of course, the Yamaha’s laminate wood construction compared to the solid woods in the higher end American brands.

The laminate construction of the Yamaha did have one advantage; what you heard is what you got. In other words if the guitar sounded good at the time it was going to keep sounding good. It may not have “improved” like a solid wood top but by the same token you could buy a solid top back then and it wouldn't necessarily age and eventually sound the way you would want it to. One still tended to buy those for the same reason you would buy a laminate, for the sound that you heard at the time.

I think that’s one reason why used acoustics were so popular back then in the 70s; with higher end guitars like Gibson, the tops had either improved with age or stayed tight and a buyer could hear what it would sound like after being broken in. When you think about it, telling people that a solid top guitar will sound a lot better later on, that may have been the way things were, can make the evaluation of a new high-end guitar a lot tougher. The same with taking it to resale value into account.

Those are two acoustics that I once owned. One of the reasons I didn’t list technical specs is because those are easily available on the internet. These days it’s necessary to have the specs available as there’s so much choice at every price tier but believe it or not, in the old days, we were often grateful to just have a playable guitar at the price range we could afford.

Reminds me of the time I was in a small guitar store and they were selling a line of acoustics that apparently were favored by such famed guitarist as John Fahey. The salesman spent over half an hour explaining why the guitar was so good. A lot of the details that seem common now sounded very exotic back then. Also, such pitches were necessary because back then a good guitar could be easily priced out of reach and often customers had to be talked into buying one. 

There was a similar story in another guitar store I visited to check out strats and admittedly, that’s all I was going to do because I couldn’t afford one. The owner realized that and spent over 45 minutes trying to sell me a Mustang. The fact that he could devote that kind of time to me gives you an idea of how the guitar market could be like back then. I was actually the only customer in that store for over an hour.

The next one I'm going to write about was one of my favorite inexpensive 12 strings. I had actually quit playing guitar for a few years in the 80s but eventually picked up an older Yamaha 12 string which I hung on to for over 15 years. It’s a tribute to the quality that company was famous for, that unlike a lot of 12 strings in the era, the one that I bought used never developed a neck problem, which was common back in the seventies and eighties for various reasons which I'll discuss in the future review. I also talked about that a bit in one of my reviews about 12 strings on this site.

I was able to sell it for what I paid for it and condition was such that the buyer bought it without any questions.

So, coming up next, the immortal cheap Yamaha 12 string…

Al Handa

July 12, 2026

Mark McGraw Music And Demo (70s J-55)

A video short with Mark McGraw playing his 70s Gibson J-55 six string acoustic.

For more Mark McGraw: Solo YouTube Channel https://youtube.com/channel/UCKzx9--zoHxH1rkqOkOpVjw?si=K-3P0V2TDbgeJzVv For his work with H.M.I. (Handa-McGraw International) https://youtube.com/@boogieunderground?si=n5bu7OScRoyOV1lv

His music is also available on all major music sites like Spotify, etc.

Review: 2025 IYV IVSV-300 Cherry Red Solid Body 6 String Electric Guitar.

2025 IYV IVSV-300 Cherry Red Solid Body 6 String Electric Guitar.

I thought I had reviewed this one. I was intending to do an aftermarket report on this model so it's going to be a review and aftermarket report.

I guess you could say that this is actually a nice copy of an SG standard with a vibrola type tremolo, with a bright and attractive cherry finish. The main difference is that one of the horns, the top one, is further forward than the lower creating a slightly offset double cut as opposed to the symmetrical Gibson or Epiphone versions.

The reason I got this was because of all the SG copies in this price range, which is about 200 bucks, it was the only one with a vibrola and I'm not sure why but it's what I want on an SG. I've had SGs in the past but never with the vibrola because they were rarer and more expensive.

Another reason why I didn't have an SG for quite some time, maybe two decades, is because it's a guitar that I admire but never considered it as playable as a tele because of the infamous neck dive and the sound doesn't always fit what I normally play. I'm basically a telecaster player who likes the idea of having an SG around but wouldn't be using it enough to justify buying a Gibson or even the Epiphone equivalent which is about 150-200 dollars more than the IYV-300.

The dimensions are like an Epiphone or Gibson with 24.7” scale and the lighter body seems to reduce the infamous SG neck dive. It may be because the double cuts are asymmetric and so the body sits further back on the thigh. Combined with the way it sits, the position of the body contours, I find that there is some neck dive but it's easy to control because of the balance of the asymmetric cut and the way it sits on the thigh.

Now, looking past the cosmetics, it looks and feels pretty solid. It doesn't have the look of a cheap guitar and the chrome parts look substantial. The vibrola tremolo bar and mount are quite solid and stay in place.

The tuners are average, they basically work and I don't see them as being as good as the Epiphone even though they're in the same price range (of some of the models). The pick ups are surprisingly good as I've heard those described as microphonic but that's not obvious here. I see them as sounding darker than the Epiphones that I’ve played and certainly more than the SGs that I did own in the past.

The neck is quite good. In fact it's probably my favorite part of the guitar. The longer scale, due to the way the body sits, is what originally turned me off along with the neck dive. Given my arm length and hand size, it always felt like I was having to reach far out as opposed to a Tele, which has a longer next scale but because of the design, feels shorter. In the case of the IYV, it feels pretty good and the string spacing is quite comfortable.

Keep in mind I'm talking about the ergonomics in relation to my body so a taller or shorter person might find the comfort level much different.

The neck has a standard SG feel, slightly wide and pretty thin and as a result feels very easy to play. It's a fast neck. The only flaw is that the fret brass does seem a little cheap although I didn't necessarily feel a lot of sharp frets and it was easy to smooth those out. The vibrola bridge and nut sits kind of high so initially the action on the guitar was too high. It was easy to bring it down, however if the neck pulls up further in the future due to age then I probably won't have much room to adjust any further. 

When I say that the frets seem cheap, what I mean is that I did have to level the frets on this particular model and it seemed like the brass came off awfully quick; I found it I had to level with a very light hand. So that's something to keep in mind that if you do have to do some fret work on it, start off light and get a feel for it so you don't overdo it.

But that's a problem for a later time, right now the action is pretty good and after some work with the nut, the action up to about the 8th or 9th fret is excellent. Also, I’ll be using this guitar for working in a modified D tuning so there’s a lot less stress on the fingers.

Given the price point of about $200, it's to be expected you have to do some setup, and in the case of this guitar the setup was probably a little more extensive than I would recommend for a beginner. Others may have bought one that has a nice setup or that the setup in the factory survived the various travel and packing and shipping, so I won't say that all the guitars of this model line will require as much setup as the one I got. 

In fact that's often a point in reviews that reviewers should be more careful about because they're dealing with one guitar and you can't necessarily extrapolate the qualities of the entire line from that one copy.

On the other hand, the qualities of the instrument in terms of the ergonomics along with the surprisingly nice sounding pickups and the nice solid vibrola made it worth putting in the effort to set it up. Plus I wanted an inexpensive SG copy so it could sit in a rack and be played occasionally without worrying about whether I can justify the investment. 

The IYV works well as a second ( or third) guitar and sounds good enough that I haven't had the desire to even buy an equivalent Epiphone. Properly set up, it's easily as good as one in the same price range and it's certainly the most inexpensive vibrola model out there. 

Getting back to the playability for a moment; If you're capable of setting up the guitar, or willing to pay for a setup, my feeling is you're going to have a good guitar for the price. The playability and the ease of the neck profile made the guitar feel more than good enough for my collection. Frankly, once it's been set up right it's as good as an Epiphone.

I've had the guitar for approximately 6 months now and it has been played pretty regularly as it's a nice studio recording guitar for certain types of rock numbers. I haven't found anything annoying yet and my initial impression that it's a nice comfortable guitar that's got better balance than an actual Gibson or Epiphone SG still stands.

Going back to the pickups a bit, the best pickup is the bridge pick up. The neck pickup is okay but it's a little muddier than I prefer, although for certain types of numbers, when you crank the treble up it reminds me of the old San Francisco psychedelic sound. That’s not as useful a sound these days but nonetheless it's nice to have it there and the middle position is quite good. However, the reason it’s a keeper is because of the back pickup which is very good.

So, my initial judgment would have been that it's actually a pretty good guitar If you're willing to devote the time to setting it up. In fact, the frets needed to be leveled means that this setup was more extensive.

If I were to make this a pure aftermarket report, I would say that after 6 months the guitar is still in my collection, and I have no desire to replace it because it basically has what I want in a light use SG. Since it does that, and the price was right, I'd have to say that for the right person it's an excellent guitar that just might stay in your collection for a while.

Al Handa

July 9th, 2026

Core Specifications

Body Style: SG-style Solid-body (Right-handed)

Body Material: Mahogany (Some international variants note a Basswood top)

Neck Material: Mahogany with bolt-on construction

Fretboard: Jatoba wood

Scale Length: 24.75"

Pickups: H-H (Dual Humbucker Configuration)

Bridge: Tune-O-Matic with a vintage spring-steel vibrato unit / tremolo arm

Controls: 1 x Volume, 1 x Tone, 3-way Pickup Selector

Hardware: Sealed die-cast tuners, metal output jack plate

Nut Material: Bone or hard synthetic