| The neck has to be strong enough to handle the tension of the strings, stiff enough not to wobble around while you're playing and shaped to fit nicely into your hand. It also has to be properly set up of course. Modern banjos have a steel-reinforced adjustable neck, that is it gas a metal "truss rod" running all along inside the neck for added strength. The tension and thus the curvature of the neck can be adjusted with a screw at one end of the truss rod. Older banjos and old-style replicas have all-wood necks that won't last as long and is a bit harder to set up. On four- or five-stringed banjo, the difference isn't that important but on instruments with more strings old-style necks tend to be a bit too "chunky" for many players' taste. The neck does affect the sound of the banjo, but not nearly as much as some may claim. When it comes to playability it's absolutely vital though.
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