Cordoba Fusion Orchestra CE Electro-Acoustic Classical Guitar

It's beautiful and perfectly suits my needs. Originally, I tried the C5-CE, but the Orchestra CE is a far better instrument and is therefore worth the extra investment. One of the main reasons is because of it having an onboard microphone in addition to the saddle pickup, plus a knob on the Fishman electronics that allows me to "blend" a mixture of the two, and the sound quality great. The difference in wood also makes this particular guitar stunning to look at. It has an excellent all-over finish, and the workmanship is superb because their attention to detail is excellent. I was pleasantly surprised.

On a personal note, I don't like to buy products from China (mostly for economic reasons), but many times I don't have much choice as a consumer, as it was in this particular case, but I have to say that out of all of the Chinese products that I have purchased throughout my life, this is of the highest quality, and it hurts me to praise the Chinese work ethic, but they deserve it. Cordoba must have some very special people overlooking their manufacturing operation, so good on them. It’s no wonder that Cordoba grew large enough to buy out Guild and then to sell themselves to Yamaha. They are successful for a reason - quality.

For necessary feedback - The only downside with the two Cordoba guitars that I have played is how the frets seem to wear down the three wound strings in a matter of minutes when using the “rocker” technique, but not only that, it makes an awfully loud scratching sound that drowns out the note, and that's not good when I play back my recordings. This is, after all, a “crossover” guitar, and because I am someone who has been bending strings for over 40 years, I find this quite frustrating. It could be that all classical guitars do this, but it’s not a great feature as it serves no benefit to me as a musician influenced by EVH, Gilmour and Lukather. I don’t understand how classical guitar frets are made, which means that my manufacturing knowledge is lacking, but it would seem obvious to me that the frets need to be polished. I don’t have any need to bend the top three nylon strings with my style of playing in this guitar, just only to “slightly” bend the wound ones, and that’s the issue I am experiencing. Many great classical players on YouTube don’t bend strings, and that’s great for such traditional players, but again, this is a crossover guitar, so I hope Cordoba sees this and takes onboard the positive feedback. It could be a design flaw, an overall manufacturing flaw or industry-wide by design, but my introduction into classical playing has been slightly marred by this annoyance, hence only 4 stars.

That being said, and the Orchestra CE being my first classical guitar and seventh overall, I can highly recommend this product.

Bax's customer service is also very special, and as a first-time customer, this is extremely important if I am to return in the future - too many online music retailers don't often meet my expectations, but Bax does.