First of all, I'm not a professional concert guitarist. I'm a fairly good guitar player and multi-instrumentalist. I got this guitar because I needed something better than my cheap, old classical guitar for recording. I do play some classical music occasionally, mainly renaissance music but my main genre is more prog rock oriented. Which means that this review is NOT written by a professional, classical guitarist.
First of all: The sound of this guitar is very good. I try a lot of classical guitars at work (guitar workshop) and this one is absolutely superb for it's price range. I honestly can't think of any guitar in this price range that has impressed me this much. At least when it comes to the sound.
As for the craftsmanship... Well, for the most part it is absolutely outstanding. However, there were a couple of rather ugly tool marks on the fingerboard. The worst one was a particularly nasty scratch going almost the full width of the fingerboard. The kind of scratch you would get if the file slips badly while dressing the frets. I wouldn't find this acceptable in ANY price range.
The saddle was also VERY rough. It had nasty file marks on the top. I would have expected a nicely polished saddle in this price range (or in ANY price range for that matter). The saddle also had notches for the lowest three strings. This isn't necessarily a problem. Many guitarist want it like that but it's not something I would expect to see on a brand new classical guitar. One of these strings actually made a slight "sitar" buzz at the nut. Maybe it was because of that notch? Or maybe it was because the saddle was rounded rather than slanted. I always prefer slanted saddles on classical guitars as I sometimes find rounded saddles may cause buzzing.
The buzzing was easily fixed. I had to file down the saddle just a tad but it was slightly high for my taste anyway.
The action was set slightly higher than 4mm at the bass side and slightly higher than 3mm at the treble side. I lowered it to 4mm/3mm.
I should probably also mention that I found this guitar slightly harder to play than most classical guitars I've tried. I had to be really precise with my left hand to avoid buzzing. I had to fret the notes VERY close to the frets. I've found most other guitars to be more forgiving in this respect. Maybe a different set of strings would make a difference (I installed normal tension Savarez Alliance/Cantiga). I'm sure a classically trained guitarist won't find this to be a problem but a beginner might. Still, you want to learn good technique so maybe this isn't a bad thing after all.
Apart from these minor issues I give this guitar top ratings, especially considering the price. It's not exactly cheap but it's excellent value nonetheless.
