Post by davidmdahl on Jan 28, 2015 18:53:44 GMT
Several years ago I bought a zhongruan via Ebay. The seller claimed that it was made by Man Rui Xing, and I expect that it was, or at least in his workshop. I have a fondness for MRX based on my experience with some of the MRX erhus I have played, and this zhongruan had a design that appealed to me, and the price was good.
When the zhongruan came, I found the sound quite good, but the fretting was terrible. The tuning was poor, and even though the action was quite high, there was a lot of buzzing of strings against the frets. The topper was that the frets soon began falling off. Sometimes they came off when I tried to play the zhongruan, but often they just fell off even when the zhongruan was at rest against my bookcase. I decided against gluing the bridges back on since I was not sure how to find the right spots for good tuning, and I have no experience adjusting fret height.
After several years of inaction, last December I finally brought the MRX zhongruan to a local guitar store and asked the luthier if he was up for a challenge. He wound up stripping the finish off of the finger board, leveled the finger board and reglued the frets. I just got the zhongruan back yesterday, and can report that he did a great job. The tuning now is flawless, and the fret height seems optimal. Even though he lowered the action, I have not found any buzzing strings.
I had a lot of other practicing to do last night on dan tranh and guzheng, but I did take the time to play some tunes on my MRX zhongruan. What fun! It is a pleasure to play on a good sounding instrument that is properly tuned and set up. It was a learning experience though. I might have bought a more expensive zhongruan that was properly fretted to begin with. I probably paid the same amount in total getting my cheaper zhongruan fixed.
Best wishes,
David
When the zhongruan came, I found the sound quite good, but the fretting was terrible. The tuning was poor, and even though the action was quite high, there was a lot of buzzing of strings against the frets. The topper was that the frets soon began falling off. Sometimes they came off when I tried to play the zhongruan, but often they just fell off even when the zhongruan was at rest against my bookcase. I decided against gluing the bridges back on since I was not sure how to find the right spots for good tuning, and I have no experience adjusting fret height.
After several years of inaction, last December I finally brought the MRX zhongruan to a local guitar store and asked the luthier if he was up for a challenge. He wound up stripping the finish off of the finger board, leveled the finger board and reglued the frets. I just got the zhongruan back yesterday, and can report that he did a great job. The tuning now is flawless, and the fret height seems optimal. Even though he lowered the action, I have not found any buzzing strings.
I had a lot of other practicing to do last night on dan tranh and guzheng, but I did take the time to play some tunes on my MRX zhongruan. What fun! It is a pleasure to play on a good sounding instrument that is properly tuned and set up. It was a learning experience though. I might have bought a more expensive zhongruan that was properly fretted to begin with. I probably paid the same amount in total getting my cheaper zhongruan fixed.
Best wishes,
David
