@Chris - yeah I ended up rolling the dice and buying this one amazon.com/gp/product/B005CDTXAI/…

I've had it for a couple of weeks now. Plays great and notice nothing different b/w my son's Yamaha which we're still paying for and this one. Seems like a great deal for what was included. I opted to get the nickel colored one just because, my son now wants to steal mine.

@slm - Ah, interesting! Hope it holds together for you. :)