Thomann Europe Dulcimer D1211

Positives first.
For its size and the fact it is made from laminated wood it has a good bright airy sound and a surprising amount of sustain. It s a good size starter instrument for a child or for travelling.

The negatives.
It will not stay in tune!
The machine heads appear to be of reasonable quality, but the bridge and nut material are not fit for purpose. The plastic is soft and the strings cut their own groove. Each time one tunes it they cut a little deeper, eventually, this will affect the height of the action and playability.
I have replaced the bridge with a piece of acrylic plastic from a ruler! Tuning is now stable and the sound has improved on the original set up.
Hora (the makers) need to improve their quality control. There was a crusty lump of finish (shellac) now polished out on the left side of the body which had gone unnoticed when it was packed, although there was an unsigned QC certificate was enclosed!
Perhaps Thomann staff should check the instruments before sending them out. And the buyers “kick ass” at Hora about the quality of finish and materials. After all it is Thomann’s reputation that is on the line.

This is an instrument I've wanted to try for years, but it was hard to find a mountain dulcimer that was low enough in price that I was willing to go in on it as a hobbyist. With this, it's been so worth it!

This dulcimer has a bright lovely sound, the finish is clean, the strings stay in tune and the chords stay in tune all the way to the upper frets - which surprised me for such a low price. This feels and sounds like a good instrument. But more importantly, it's all I need to have some fun!

If you were serious about learning the dulcimer, I feel pretty confident in saying this would be perfectly decent to begin your lessons.... like with any instrument, if you decide later you've grown out of it and want better quality, you can always upgrade once you're ready.

I'm not too sure what to expect when playing a Dulcimer as this is my first one, and I haven't played any others since.

But it's fun to play and quite easy to put together some interesting sounds. Takes a bit of getting used to frets that are just for the notes in a scale, but that difference is part of it's appeal.

For the price I could not expect an incredibly high quality level, but at it's price level it seems excellent value. It's solid enough and plays in tune. It did benefit from new strings, but that's the case with so many stringed musical instruments when bought.

Certainly a good choice for testing the waters and trying out a Dulcimer at a beginners level.

I'm afraid to say that in my many years as a Thomann superfan, this was by far both the worst "instrument" I've bought from them and the worst overall experience. I get that this isn't a top-of-the-line model, but the quality was so poor it was as though someone had just knocked it up in their garage. The build appeared very cheap and tacky and it sounded awful.

I hastily sent it back to Thomann, but in my haste forgot to include the gigbag, so customer service wrote and asked me to send it to Germany at my own cost. Fair enough – my mistake – so I posted it off, but a while later, the instrument was once again delivered to me as a failed return, and Thomann now refuse to have it back.

Based on my experience, I'd suggest you save your time and money and look elsewhere in this instance!

The low price got the best of my curiosity. I love the sound of the dulcimer and wanted to have a dabble without breaking the pocket. When I saw this on the Thomann website I thought it was worth investigating. I imagine for those who are good with setting up their own instruments its a great deal - but it could have been set up a little better. There didn't seem to be much of a set up at factory and the action is quite high. The instrument is very light and the quality of the instrument is decent for the price.
In conclusion: This can be a good buy,its playable but may be worth saving up a little for next model up.