Gold Tone calls their short scale, open backed model an "Irish tenor," but fact is that both long and short scale tenors are used both for Irish music and for other kinds of tenor banjo music.
Anyway, IT-250 is a really nice little open back, soft-voiced banjo. It seems to be based on the openbacked banjos Slingerland made during the 1920s and 1930s (sold under various brand names May Bell, S.S. Stewart etc.) but with some more modern features added.
The most expensive of Gold Tone's two long scale tenor banjos is based on Gibson's classic Mastertone design. The sound is nice and sweet, but not very powerful. Gold Tone has chosen to go for a low action favouring playability and speed rather than loudness on this particular instrument. That's a nice thought, but perhaps not a very smart one considering the fact that tenor banjos are mostly used in dixieland bands and Irish session music, two music scenes that both seem to require quite a lot of raw power from the banjo. Oh well, it isn't as if readjusting the action is to difficult anyway.
The tenor banjo version of this eBay mainstay has never really caught on anywhere.
As with all Tyler Mountain banjos the problem it seems to be more than a little over-priced. You can get a Gold Tone Cripple Creek for less than the price of this mass-produced Korean banjo.
