Steep price (somewhere in the range of $2300) for me, nice sound though, I did find that the more I picked it up the easier it was to adapt to the bigger stretch of the 19 frets. Usually consisting of a used 17 fret tenor or two, and they had a 19 fret Deering Vega Little Wonder on the wall for ever. When I lived in Oakland and was not far from the now gone 5th String music shop I used to sit and play the few tenors they had. I've tried finding archived specs for the Standard online without joy so might email the folks at Deering to see if they can help. The Standard I'm getting differs from the Sierra specs in that it is gloss finish to the Sierra's satin, and the ad lists it as having mahogany neck, with maple rim and resonator. The current Sierras have a different tone ring design as well. They did look fairly similar to the eye until the Sierra got it's revamp with more ornate inlays. It is the one that was in the BHO classifieds - ad text says it was the forerunner to the Sierra model. Here's a video and pictures of the banjo, which I originally posted on the song a week social group over on the mandolin cafe (I've been a mandolin player for longer than the banjo but, like so many others, found it difficult to hear myself play in session). I'm usually the only banjo player, or maybe one other on occasion, and try to reign things in unless I'm leading a set. I particularly like John Carty's style and his Ome open back 12 inch head with a simple brass tone ring - but then again he could make any banjo sound good. So I'm aiming for a slightly more mellow tone at the moment than the arch top resonator which seems to predominate for this style (though I reserve the right to change my tastes). I used to have a resonator with a Gibson style mastertone tone ring but I couldn't tame the beast and let it go.
They are all good banjos but very different. It has a whyte ladie tone ring which has more ring than my other banjos - a no tone ring Deering goodtime and a Chinese version of the Deering with a simple brass ring tone ring. I've had my Capek 19 fret Brdy (not a typo - it's a region of the Czech republic) open back for about 6 months now and I love it. There is of course nothing to stop you playing Irish tunes on a 5 string, but certainly on this side of the atlantic GDAE tenor banjo predominates for this genre. I'm guessing most folk who play Irish and related styles will be doing so on a tenor banjo.
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