Landola Review: D85

History:

Purchase: Academy of Sound convinced me to part with 349 GBP for this little baby.

What I Like About This Landola D85: Newest dreadnaught from the Landola stable in Finland, yes Finland, now they certainly know about wood. Flamed birch back and sides. What a shape, dreadnought style 6 string acoustic, I'm in love with this blonde! If you are looking for quality, look for a specification that includes a bone nut and saddle on an accoustic, yes it really matters and makes it'self known in the sound. You won't believe your ears. Volume is excellent and tonal qualities are up to standards of three times the asking price. Bright trebels and forceful bass. All I ask for an acoustic. No buzzing or rattling.

What I Do NOT Like About The Landola D85: As usual with this acoustic you will need to figure out how you are going to fit a strap. It's hard to fault the D85 but I would need to say that moving from a Strat to the D85 I had trouble with the action being too high. An e-mail to the company sorted this out for me. Well done Landola!

Landola D85 Quality Rating: Top quality woods (as you would expect in a country where the main resource is wood),with the top being solid sitka spruce and the back and sides being flamed maple. Well balanced and no scratch plate? I asked about that and I was told that if a scratch plate is added during manufacture it dumbs down the natural resilience of the wood. Sounds fairly logical when you think about it. But you gotta be careful you don't go scoring it! Having said that I have knocked it over, knocked various things against it, mikes etc. and it is still in pristine condition.

Review Summary: When you invest this amount of money you need to resist the temptation to jump in. Take your time gather as much informationa as you can and then buy a Landola at a fraction of the products of the big boys.

Rating of this Landola product: 5

This Landola D85 Acoustic Guitars Review Submitted By: Joe

Review Date: 2001-10-14