Alvarez 6020C Cutaway Dreadnought

You can read from the other reviews the details - but all solid wood would be the summary. Solid Spruce top, Solid Mahogony back and sides.

This has a gloss finish, no pick guard. It has a venetian cutaway that begins on the 14th fret.

The extensive Abalone inlay is lovely. A showy guitar, but not garish or cheap looking.

I give it a nine, because given it's original price range (I believe it retailed for about $1,200-1,500 new - I bought it used 2 years ago), there will be many guitars that have finer examples of the tone woods, better craftmanship, etc. However, given the price range it is an excellent value.

I play acoustic rock, folk, and various fingerstyle pieces. This guitar is VERY loud - a lot of projection. Balanced tones - very good trebles and very good base. I play mediums, though - the base was a bit weak playing lights, but that is almost always the case with a dreadnaught. It is a lovely sounding guitar. I find it's projection and balance in tonal range extremely competitive for any guitar in the 1,000-2,500 price range.

I first strung it up with light Elixirs and found the base too weak. (Given that I spend at least as much time playing a classical guitar - which has rich deep bass - I am very particular about bass response.) Once I switched to mediums there was no problem. I currently play D'Addario EXP17's - coated mediums.

If you only want to play lights and need deep, strong bass response, this may not be the guitar for you.

The craftsmanship is very good. It looks great. These guitars were produced for about 2 years (1997-98). My guitar has been well cared for and still looks great. The gold-tone tuners are fading a bit where your hand oils from your fingers touch to tune the guitar, but given the age that is not unexpected.

The action is, in my opinion, a bit high. That would be my only complaint about the guitar. I am so particular about who I entrust my instuments to that so far I have been unwilling to let someone fool with the action.

I just played my music buddy's Larivee dred for an entire evening jam - the Larivee had a more playable action, but not near as nice from a tonal perspective when compared to my Alvarez.

While I may not be able to play quite as fast on my guitar, I'd still rather have my Alvarez. I got a good recommendation recently on a shop, so I plan to take her in to see if they believe the action can be improved with no negative tonal impact.

In summary, she is well made, looks great, has a higher action than I'd like, but fine to play nonetheless.

This guitar sounds great for live playing. It can stand up to a mandolin - my music buddy plays fiddle and mandolin. My Alvarez "holds her own" just fine unamplified.

I mentioned some slight fading on the hardware, but it holds tune very well, and the finish is in excellent condition.

I take very good care of my guitars, so I expect to have her around for my lifetime and beyond. Remember, though, this guitar does NOT have a pickguard, so a flat picker that tends to hit the wood a lot would definately damage the finish. I flat pick some, but I don't hit the wood so it is not a problem for me.

This is a pretty beefy guitar - solid, a bit heavy, well-made. No problem to gig without backup.

N/A

I've been playing on and off for 20 years. This guitar is lovely to look at and sounds excellent too.

To put this guitar in perspective:
About 9 months after I bought this guitar I spent an afternoon at a very high end guitar store, playing every premium brand: Martin, Taylor, Santa Cruz, Collings, etc. There was ONE guitar that I felt clearly, decisively sounded superior to my Alvarez. That was a $4,500 McCollum 000. (Wow - that was a guitar!) Anyway, that 2 hours I spent playing anything I wanted without regard to the expense was a great experience - it showed me that I'd have to spend 3x what this guitar cost new to find something that to my ear was instantly head and shoulders better than the Alvarez.

If you're looking for a balanced-sounding, loud dread with some real style, this Alvarez would be a great one to consider. It doesn't have the "premium brand" appeal that Martins and Taylors et al have, so a used one can be purchased at a fraction of the cost. If you can deal with the occasional snob who'll turn their nose up at the brand of your guitar, I think you'd be pleased. I can guarantee you that the minute you started playing the snobs would quiet down! A super value.

1997 Solid Sitka Spruce Top, solid Mahogony sides, back and neck. Rosewood fret board and bridge. Bridge pins are solid and have abalone tips. Well cut bone nut and compensated bone saddle.

Very high quality Die-cast grover-style tuners - possibly grovers though I didn't take them off to check. Very comfortable full scale neck with nickle-silver medium fret wire. Slightly radiused fret-board with an Abalone fleur-de-lis inlay at the 12th fret.

Large fullsize dreadnaught with a dramatic cutaway giving free access to the 20th/21st fret.

Bookmatched slightly open-pore mahogony with nitro-cellulose laquer. The spruce top -- while not "natural" does not appear to me to have the same number of layers, and I think it gives the guitar a more open tone than expected given how "fancy" this guitar looks.

It has sufficient projection to work well with a mic -- and great external mics are almost always better than even the best piezo internal mics. The only reason to add electronics to this guitar would be ease of tuning -- but it stays in tune -- so that is really not a big deal.

In general I am suspicious of lots of beautiful details on a guitar -- but Alvarez was allowed here -- it was their birthday.

See above about the style of finish contributing to the tonr on this guitar.

This is NOT A BEGINNER GUITAR. This is a guitar with a large voice and a wide dynamic range made out of wood that improves over time and with use.

With finger picking:
Sweet treble that rings through, a mid that does not get lost, and a bass that does not overpower the rest.

Flat picking,
Really fun b/c the neck is fast and smooth and capable of lots of harmoics. I have been able to run a phrase, then continue with my left hand as an echo and still have it pick up -- with out losing the original phrase -- now that is sound integrity.

And who needs rhinestones -- this thing outshines us all?

Straight picking - good blues too. Chunka mute chunka mute chunka chunka.

Ask about the sound in 50 years though -- so I give it a lower score b/c it isn't yet what it will be

Like I said, this is a pro acoustic and it is set up like a pro guitar. Bone nut, bone saddle. Professional finish. Grace notes everywhere. Yes -- there are fret markers -- where they are needed -- on the side. If you are at the point that you need this guitar or one like it -- or if you buy it to get to this point -- you should be making eye contact with the audience dude!

It has scalloped and elegant x-bracing all tucked in under the kerf. It uses solid tone-woods. The top and the bottom are bound. The tuners are die-cast. There is no hint of a seem on the heel. The bridge is made right and placed right. I can see hide-glue ooze on the inside next to one of the braces.

Attention was paid to this guitar. Even the bridge pins are the good kind -- not the wimpy melt-in-your-hand-plastic.

Yeah, I think this thing will be around long enough for the wood to sound really killer.

Huh?

I've been playing for almost 30 years, and mostly I did this review because I thought this guitar was better than the review the other guy gave it. No offense really -- but this guitar has too much dynamic range to be played in a small room. I think the reason it is so pretty is that it is the commemorative edition -- not because they were hiding design flaws.

My favorite guitar -- a beat-up epiphone cut-away from the early '70s was never this expensive or this nice -- but I bet if I put as much time into this alvarez -- given they have the same kind of wood - they would eventually sound darn close.

1997 Alvarez 6020C, 75 year Commemorative Issue (sure guys, pat yourselves on the back...) *Factory Second* Made in Korea in '97, purchased in Ohio in '99. These go for $800, but thanks to a few minor finish blemishes, and one hell of a sale at Lentine's Music in Cleveland (Middleburg Hts.), I walked out with it for a mere $300 (well, not for me. That was my absolute ceiling for the range I was looking at).
Anyways, here's the specs: Solid sitka spruce top (yay!) Solid mahogany back and sides (yay again!) Set mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard; not sure what kind of truss rod it is, but it's adjusted thru the soundhole rather than the headstock, if that helps. Rosewood bridge Gold/chrome tuners (Gold knobs, but chrome machines) Bone nut and saddle
It's without electronics, and is very heavy on cosmetics. The entire body is bound, and well as the fretboard. There's no pickguard, which might have been nice, given my sometimes violent strumming style. Abalone inlays encircle the soundhole (as well as two rings of piping). The edge of the soundboard is also inlayed with abalone, as is the headstock. Bridge pins and the endpin have (presumably) castoff pieces of mother-of-pearl inlayed in them. The fretboard has no dot markers, only a small abalone inlay at the 12th fret. There's also a small gold inlay on the underside of the bridge join, and some piping or veneering or something down the middle of the guitar on the back and sides. It has a gloss finish, and a deep, painfully sharp cutaway at the 14th-fret join between neck and body. Overall shape is dreadnought, with the upper bout a bit more rounded than traditional Martin-style designs.

I play for myself, mostly. Yes, I'm a bedroom player. I do a lot of rock songs, old and new. Mostly chorded stuff, some lead, and a little bottleneck slide. I'm working hard on building up my chops and improving my general technique. Trying to write some songs, too. This guitar suits my needs perfectly (in tandem with my Les Paul, and my dad's old Yamaha 12-string). The sound is great, with excellent projection and volume, and good balance thoughout the tonal range. I've played US-made Guilds and Martins that sounded alot better, but compared to the other guitars I could afford (Ibanez and cheap Takamine, bleh), this one sounds absolutely beautiful. It's just a little too trebly to match the sound in my head, so it only gets an 8, but still, a very high rating.

Well, this guitar was a factory second, and this category is it's only real failing. Still, this guitar impressed me even in this area. The gloss finish looks great, the inlay work is admirable, and my pick hasn't made any noticible marks in the finish yet, although I know I've hit the edge of the soundhole many times. The flaws that made this a second were extremely minor; globs of glue on the sides of the body under the finish, a barely noticible bit of knot in the soundboard on the upper bout, some odd darkness in the headstock inlay, causing some parts to disappear into the black finish under it, and some slightly misaligned, but fully usable tuners.
Since the guitar was made over two years before I purchased it, and went thru another store before it was sent to the store I bought it from, I have no idea whether it still has the factory setup. When I recieved it, however, it was impeccably set up, with medium action, perfectly seated frets, and no noticible problems with intonation. The saddle and nut are both well-cut and seated. The bracing seems fine, based on the sound, and what little I can see through the soundhole.

This guitar is plenty solid, and I expect I'll have it for quite awhile, with a little care and affection. I wouldn't have any problem with gigging it, even without a backup (which is quite convenient since it's the only 6-string acoustic I have). The finish seems a little on the thin side, but seems very durable. The nut, bridge, saddle, even the frets stand up just fine to my playing. The tuners don't have any brand name on them, but are very smooth, and hold tuning very wellThe bridge pin is in there good, though I'd have to play sitting down anyways, since there aren't any built-in electronics (I prefer mics to piezos anyways).

Haven't had any reason to.

Were this guitar stolen, I'd cry my heart out, because they'd have to have broken into my house, and also stolen my other two guitars, my amp, my TVs, my 'puters, my Playstation, microwave, etc. Assuming the insurance company came through for me, I'd still be hard pressed to find another deal this good. If I had to pay $800 to replace this guitar, I'd probably end up getting a Martin, Guild, or Taylor instead. This is an excellent $300 guitar, but only a mediocre $800 guitar. Still, because of the excellent deal I got on it, and the overall quality, this guitar gets a ten. It sounds good, it's solid, and it feels effortless to play (or at least doesn't require any more effort than most of the better guitars I've played). What more could you ask of a guitar?