In my reading the main thing is to be careful to keep it reasonably quiet? If it is a similar volume to your voice when singing it should be pretty safe.
(I'm lucky enough to perform in a genre where you can generally keep stage volumes pretty low.)
That's probably the case, though I'm no hearing expert. The rumors typically have to do with Peter Frampton volume levels. But who knows what else those guys are doing to their hearing.
A hollow body instrument takes a skilled luthier to craft, and it is a work of art. Electric instruments like that electric mandolin and including nearly all solid body electric guitars do not take much skill to create. They are hunks of wood with strings stretched across them with some electronics shoehorned in. Any high schooler that made it through shop class will have the requisite skill to create one. The cost of a $2000 (guessing) reissue Gibson Les Paul has very little to do with craftsmanship, has more to do with supply and demand, and even more to do with cartels and price manipulation.
I feel the same way as a I feel about my solid body electric violin, the acoustic sound is what makes the instrument and a solid body mandolin to me just sounds like an electric guitar.
Have you heard other electric mandolins? This one sounds like an electric guitar to me as well, but it lacks the doubled strings which give an ordinary mandolin so much of its characteristic sound. It does not seem like a particularly useful comparison.
I have not, the mando player in my band plays an acoustic with bridge pickup. It sounds fantastic and it's never caused feedback, so again why sacrifice the sound that makes these folk instruments what they are? If you want to shred or heavy warp the sound you can still do so.
Maybe I'm just bitter on how much I spent on my electric fiddle only to never play it.
It's not really fair to be comparing the acoustic to the electric going directly into the board. What does it sound like coming from an amp (and with a mic recording the amp)?
