Raimundo 130 Review

History:

Purchase: I paid $499.99 at Sam Ash. I was actually shopping for Acoustic guitars and purchased a Taylor but I had 15 month financing at 0% so I decided to finish my guitar collection with a Classical since I don't have one.

What I Like About This Unit: Considering I have only played acoustics and electric guitars I knew very little about classical guitars. I played every classical at sam ash which included Ramirez, Yamaha, (none of the carlos robelli, Yuck) and some other spanish models. The 130 was actually the best factory set up of the group including some other higher priced Raimundo's I played. Raimundo's felt good in my small hands and had a very warm sound. Action was nice. A little, and I mean little bow to the neck but otherwise overall construction on the OUTSIDE of the guitar was flawless. Great looking guitar.

What I Do NOT Like About The Raimundo 130: Well, there just isn't that much volume to this guitar. I wouldn't play this model guitar in public for that reason but I'm only using it for my own entertainment which the projection is fine for.

130 Quality: Ebony fretboard, Rosewood neck, Solid Cedar top(I think), Solid Rosewood sides, laminated bottom. A bunch of frets. The binding on the inside of the guitar is by far the worst I have ever seen. There are big gaps between the bracing construction on the bottom and sides of the inside. Surely not seemless. Then again I'm not a guitar builder so I don't care. The sound is still above average so somthing was done right. I also wish the bottom was solid rosewood instead of laminate making the box all solid. I just personally like all solid construction for aging purposes. Oh well, it will still mature nicely.

Summary: All I care about is sound, playability and intonation being good. Which this guitar has. Sure there are cheap guitars that sound bad and expensive guitars that have all the bells and whistles but if you suck it doesn't matter how good your guitar is because you still suck and if your great you can make the big shot preaching about his $2000.00 Axe cry when you sound better than him playing on your pizza box with strings. I'm sure Andres Segovia, God rest his soul, could play this guitar and still sound better than anyone in the world. Case in point, the guitar has what you need to excel so don't hate on it if it doesn't sound good when you only practice once a week.

Rating of this product: 4

This Raimundo Classical Guitars Review Submitted By: Jeff

Date: 2004-03-21