Asturias D. Current

These guitars are all handbuilt by a small team of very skilled
craftsmen.is a workshop of handcraft guitars
with the highest reputation in quality of its products. The workshop is located in Kurume city of Kyushu island,and 15 highly skilled craftsman from all over the nation are building classical guitars,acoustic guitars, classical mandolins, and ukuleles.
- The finish on this particular model is really flawless.
- Bodystyle is a dreadnought, comparable to a Martin D28 or D35.
Fot those who are not familiar with dreadnoughts it is a
steelstring acoustic guitar.
- Gotoh tuners are installed and they just work fine.
- Martin style frets on an ebony fingerboard. These necks makes
the Asturias guitars play with an unsurpassed ease.
- Japanese handcrafted in the South island of Kyushu, Japan under
master luthier Tsuji Wataru, these instruments are held in high
regard by artists and industry professionals alike.
- 20 frets and a solid top.
- Large inventory of German spruce, ebony, Indian rosewood,
Brazilian rosewood are stocked for future production.
- No electronics, tuner or onboard EQ.
- Soundbox made of indian Rosewood. Top of German Spruce.

As far as the sound goes these guitars are not surprisingly closely
related to the Martin guitars. The refinement is there as is the balance between the low and higher strings.
A very round and beautiful even sound somewhat more dry than say a D35 but that can be an advance as tone separation is great.
This will be an excellent professional guitar for the Strummers but
suited for the pickers as well!

The workmanship on this guitar is exquisite but that can be expected from a guitar in this price range. The inner strutting and the glueing work is a 10 in itself! What I particularly like is the wooden lining on the soundboard and back as well as the heel.

The problem will be that the prices of these guitars care coming quite close to that of a genuine Martin. The Dollar currency makes
it that way. The sound is very reminiscent of the earlier mentioned
Martins but in ease of playing the Asturias models beats the Martin guitars. Action was factory installed OK for me.

I have no idea wether if this guitar withstands a lifetime but I
think it does. Hardware is OK and the finish is even fantastic.
On a gig there are so much things that can go wrong. It is allways
better to bring out two guitars for a performance if you have that
luxury.

This instrument is still too young to be able to tell more about
it but they do resemble the TAMA guitars (second half of the seventies) which are also great guitars.

I do not know anything about customer support but I think these
people are proud about their products and they can be.
For that reason I think they will help you as far as possible.
But Japan is a long way!!

I'm a lot into acoustic guitars and I'm allways comparing instruments
of all brands being a professional guitarteacher.
I hope to be able to purchase a Classical John Mills model as this
steelstring makes me very curious!