I bought an EMS lute second hand (for half price). It sounds much better than a cardboard box with elastic bands, but is best not compared with a "real" lute. It's certainly good enough to develop enough technique so that then I will be able to make an informed choice about buying a long-term instrument without relying entirely on other people's opinions, and I'm unlikely to lose any money when selling it on (which will definitely happen!).
However, I'm told that the build quality varies a lot, so it wouldn't be a good idea to buy one of these without checking it first. Mine is just about OK (not sure if it had any extra work done on it) - tuning is not a pleasant task, but is not impossible(!). At half price it was a bargain. Not sure about full price. There's a sound clip here: http://www.earlymusicshop.com/product.aspx/en-GB/1000655-ems-8-course-renaissance-lute but I bet they spent some time getting it set up properly before playing/recording that! - Danny -- http://www.rowlhouse.co.uk/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
