Amada 4855

Normally I wouldn??t write a review on a guitar that is thought to be
a nice student guitar but with this Czech made instrument I like to make an exception. As I allready play classical music for 40 years now: I??m teaching and performing as well and I do this for my job.
I have several interesting instruments regarding classical guitarplaying: Ramirez concert guitar, an old Vicente Arias classical
guitar and several early romantic guitars.

This one has a glossy finish which appears to me as industrial, quite
durable but a bit too brittle. It is a standard spanish model classical guitar with average east european tuners on it.
The soundboard appears to be a quite thin narrow grained piece of
spruce while it has a 5 fan bracing. That??s where this guitar excells: The interior strutting proves to be quite neatly done.
Though this strutting is quite heavily under the fingerboard it is
very light in it??s fan strutting. The fingerboard and bridge is of an
unknown wood to me, perhaps walnut or some east european kind of hardwood.

What made me write this review is that between the fan bracinfg someone glued some pieces of print plate which is of course very
unusual! When the guitar came to me it rattled on hardly every tone
because of a badly glued printplate (There aren??t any electronic purposes for it!) I removed it and the sound became much more lively:
The basses are rich with lots of overtones: Brilliant, allmost like my Ramirez. The upper strings have enough volume and evenness in sound compared to each other but their higher frequency response isn??t that rich compared to the Ramirez.
This can be the result of using mahogany for the sides and back.
I??m planning to remove the other two pieces of print plate as well.

The neck has been reinforced with a stripe of the same wood but reversed. This neck was straight and good playable. The frets were
not all correctly placed in a way that the tang doesn??t allways is mounted straight into the fingerboard.
I made a correction on the playing action so it??s fine with me now.

I only use this guitar as a holiday stand in (do I say this correctly) but I was astonished by it??s qualities as I think this guitar isn??t too expensive too buy new.
I bought mines at an auction, believe it or not, for ??? 16,-
I was planning to sell it to a pupil of mine after having set this
instrument properly but I??m giving it to my daughter so it will be
not too far away from me. I was quite surprised this quality came out
of a east european factory made instrument. My compliments!
You can rely on it but to be honest: I wouldn??t use it as my concert
instrument. It lacks a bit brlliance in the upper register.

Don??t know anything about this company and I couldn??t find much
information on it but if someone has a similar instrument I would be glad to be informed about the extra glued printplates: Is this a factory made move (to dampen the upper registers to make it more mediocre according to it??s model number and further features) or did
the former owner made this move and why?
Please contact me at noud.koevoets@wanadoo.nl

I??m a professional guitar player and I??m quite able to compare guitars with each other although it remains a matter of personal taste. I like the Ramirez cedarboard concert guitars (1A model)
I have a wonderful model 10 Orozco guitar of 1980 and of course
I really enjoy the Vicente Arias that is a stand alone soundwise
but Torres, Manuel Ramirez as well as Arias are the master luthiers
of the nineteenth century in Spain.