Breedlove Guitars Pro Series C25/CR Herringbone

Gloss Concert size with Solid Red Cedar over Solid Rosewood Back and Sides. Most features are already covered. Gotoh Tuners, Delouxe case, bought used. Beautiful guitar with like it or hate it bridge design.
L R Baggs pickup with volume and tone controls in soundhole.

It is problematic to assign a number to sound. This guitar is rich and full with strong overtones and exceptional sustain. The Cedar is very responsive to fingerpicking input, from soft to really digging hard. For lack of a better term, it is very resonant. It is a unique sound, I wouldn't really compare it to Taylors, Martins, or Larrivees. It is more a signature sound that is warm and extremely full.
I would rate it a 10 for fingerstyle, but lower, perhaps a 6 or 7 for strumming. The Cedar will compress when the pick digs in. Sounds great if you don't press too hard.

Beautifully put together. The next is not slim and has a 1 3/4 nut. I don't know the string spacing at the bridge, but it is well space for fingerstyle. No stray glue on the inside, great woods, no flaws in the finish that I can find.
I bought it used, so I don't know if the set up is original or if the previous owner had it set up for personal preference. It plays wonderfully and very easy.

Seems very well put together. Very solid guitar

I have been playing for 40 years, own (or have owned) a lot of different guitars from Martins, Gibsons, Larrivees, along with less expensive instruments. My favorite is a Larrivee C-10 I own, but this one is a close second. If it were lost, or stolen, I would look immediately to replace it with another of the same breed! Again, I consider it a signature sound, and love this guitar!

concert size soft single cut, natural finish, sealed tuners, wide neck, long scale, case, pre amp sound hole controls, mahogany neck, ebony board, cedar top etc... a lot to share! i would assume anyone reading this already knows the specs on this guitar. a fully featured acoustic guitar. i rate it a 9 because nothing is perfect.

concise and rich sounding. full and balanced for a concert size. sounds bigger than a concert. i'm not an expert on guitars but this guitar sounds beautiful. i like the single cut. i tried several taylor single cuts and all of them sounded dead. i also tried several other guitars.

the action on this guitar is just right. the finish is lovely. the cedar and rosewood are a beautiful combination visually and sonically. i've owned the guitar for a year and have not noticed any problems or flaws.

i would gig with this guitar and i would use it without backup.

it has a life time warranty. i've had no contact with breedlove. i would rate this category, "No Opinion" because i haven't had contact.

i started playing when i was 10 and have been playing for 7+ years now. i own a nice telecaster and i've tried several guitar amps. if the guitar were stolen i would replace it with the same guitar.
i compared this guitar to many other guitars. i tried gibsons, martins, taylors, washburns, epiphones, del artes, seaguls, art and lutherie, and others. i chose this guitar for its sound and features

Red Cedar, Rosewood, Ebony, LR Baggs Element. Only the best for this little guy. Fantastic value here for the money. A comparable guitar with these materials would normally cost you at least $1k more (ie: Taylor 712ce fpr 2800.00? Gimme a break!).

Great sound....great projection and bass response...smooth high end that isn't thin when used electrically...kicks *** all around. The best on the market period. You cannot go wrong with this guitar, period. Did I mention it's the best guitar value on the market today??? It's better still than comparable guitars by other makers (ie: Taylor 714ce, 712ce, etc...which are both made of the EXACT same materials but cost about $2800.00 and sounds about half as good). I had a Martin OOOC-16RGTE right before this that I got in hopes that I would find a comfortable gigging electric/acoustic...that thing had ZERO tone let me tell you. I don't think half of it was made of wood. It was more like a digital imaging guitar or something...not good. This thing is just so far ahead of ALL the competition if you don't agree with me you are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

Beautiful - some slight adjustment is needed but that's normal. If you can't adjust your guitar yourself you shouldn't be playing. Guitars are like cars...they require routine maintenance from time to time. This one will last forever with some common sense.

See above.

Actually - they were very polite and easy to reach. I called them just to thank them for making such a kick *** guitar and kicking Taylor right in the BALLS where they deserve it. This company is the real thing -- sell your Taylor, save some cash, and just get one of these. Taylor's are overpriced you're paying for the name people, please. Again, if you disagree with anything I have said you are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

Playing for centuries and I own everything. Except overpriced Taylors (well I have one Taylor NS72ce nylon which is great but that's not my fault). Can't believe they charge $2800 for a 712ce!!! Gimme a break.

the craftsman ship is amazing. the cedar top is beautiful because of its darker color. the back and side rosewood looks good too. this guitar comes standard with the L.R. baggs pick up system which i like because they didn't have to cut a whole in the guitar. the volume and tone controls are located in the sound hole. changing the battery is kind of a hassel because it is located in a velcro bag inside of the guitar and in order to get it out you have to restring the guitar or loosen the strings a lot. What's included is the truss rod, a breedlove hard deluxe case with 6 latches.. haha intense. has a strap that attaches to the case. 14 clear frets and 20 total frets. pickups are not as good as i hoped. i wish it was more like the ad 25 sr plus pickups, which was the fishman classic 4t pickup system which i loved. overall this thing is packed with pretty good features.

the sound of this guitar is phenom! it is rich in sound, bass is not overwhelming, good sustain, and is very warm. the only thing i wish was that it sounded a little more crisp and was a little more bright. but for brighter sounding the cedar top is prob not the right way to go. for the price of this guitar, the sound is incredible. i think i have grown to be too picky with guitar sounds but for the price, this sound is great! try one, you won't be disappointed.

the factory set up was pretty good. maybe a tad bit too high for my taste. i only had a little trouble with the bar chords.. but it was good. the neck was straight and i don't know everything seemed good. the finish is beautiful! i love the color of the cedar top! the bridge is a nice design too. kind of sharp though

since this guitar does have a cedar top. it is prone to more dents and scratches i guess. i have a detachable pick guard which i use when playing. but yea i have noticed that cedar gets more dings in it easier than spruce does. this is a very reliable guitar i believe. it's never let me down so far. then again, if you're gigging, you should always have a backup

so my guitar was in the case but not fully and my friend hit the case so it close on my guitar and chipped a little piece of the bridge off. i was mad at first but then i called breedlove and they said we will fix everything. since i was sending it to breedlove i made a huge list of things to check and double check. i sent it and got it back with in about 2 weeks. when i received it... it looked like new! they even polished it and got rid of some of the markings! the c25 pro edition has a lifetime warranty through breedlove.. and the person who i talked to at breedlove, the technician told me that pretty much everything is covered. but if you're not sure.. give them a call. they are very friendly. oh btw the technician who helped me out was chris.. very friendly. i think the whole staff is pretty friendly actually. very cool customer support

i have been playing for about 5 years now and i own a taylor 814 ce, a martin Shenandoah, a taylor 514 ce... and hopefully soon a taylor 614 ce!

if this were stolen, i'd prob upgrade to another breedlove. prob the northwest.

my fav feature is the restringing process. it's as easy as an electric guitar.

i think this guitar can be compared to a taylor 714 ce. although i do think that this breedlove does sound better. but then again that's my opinion.

i chose this guitar because it was in my price range.

i only wish it had different inlays and a better pick up system.

10 The basic features were covered in the first review. This guitar is made in the Breedlove custom shop using a bolt on neck I assume is made in their overseas shop. My guitar was made in November 2007 and was purchased the next month for Christmas. The overall construction is very good, with the solid Cedar top, solid Indian Rosewood back and sides, and Mahogany neck. Tuners are Gotoh and hold tune extremely well. The electronics are LR Baggs under saddle pickup with the volume and tone hidden just inside the sound hole. The tone circuit is allows more complex tone than a basic high/low boost found on cheaper guitars. Plugged in, this guitar sounds amazing. The Breedlove Case looks much better than other cases. Very sturdy, with 6 latches. A couple of features to mention are the truss rod adjustment tool, which is made with a flamed maple/ebony laminate handle which is a nice touch. Also included with the guitar is a string guard that prevents scratching the guitar when changing the strings through the pin less bridge. It is a shaped piece of material that fits next to the end of the bridge so that as the strings are removed through the bridge they don???t tear up the finish. Very cool innovation.

10 I had played several Breedlove models including the Atlas models, made overseas, and the Focus models, which are custom shop guitars, identified by the strangely shaped saddle design. While the Atlas guitars almost got me to buy, they still lacked the certain ???something??? that I was looking for. The Focus guitar I played was a little ???dark??? for my personal liking, but knowing that each individual guitar has it???s own voice, I kept looking, knowing that I was onto something with the Breedlove products. I went to a store in Westerville Ohio where I knew they sold Breedloves. They only had 4 left in stock. The Pro C25 was the first one I played. My first words were ???OH, MY GOSH???. The tone was incredible. Very warm with an even midrange and just enough sparkle on the top end. The one thing I didn???t quite like right off the bat was the high action, but I knew that could be fixed. I played it for about an hour, playing every song that would test the limits of the guitar. I had to buy it. I wasn???t intending to buy it from this store since it wasn???t in my home town, but I had to. I do notice that the solid Cedar top is very sensitive to different styles of playing. For finger picking, it???s very loud, one aspect that gets the most comments from other players. It is very warm on the lower end and sparkles on the high end. However, this guitar, with the cedar top, is not for the hard core st rummer in a Bluegrass band. The top is easily overdriven, causing the low end to drop away. Knowing this allows me to not get frustrated. If you play this style of music, you may want to stick to a Spruce top since Spruce is harder than Cedar and can withstand the punishment. This guitar is a different creature, one I really like. I've had it for 5 months and still find myself saying "I really love my guitar."

9.5 I didn???t noticed any factory blemishes at all. The Gotoh tuners were installed properly and were the proper tightness for my tastes. The Abalone accents around the sound hole are very nice and get the most comments of any feature. The reason I gave the features a 9.5 is that the action was a little high for my tastes. Being a violin tech, I removed the bone bridge and shaved off about 1/8??? off the bottom of the bridge. NOW it???s a players guitar. Many of my guitar friends say it plays better and is a ???finger pickin??? guitar???.

I would say it???s very reliable and durable. The solid wood construction gives the guitar a good feel and the pickup controls feel good, although they will take getting used to being inside the sound hole instead of on the outside of the guitar body. The Cedar top is a softer material than Sitka Spruce, and as such I feel that I need to be just a bit more careful with it. I know the limitations (see above) but don???t mind as this guitar suits my finger style playing much better than my Takamine.

When I first got the guitar, I had trouble fitting the truss rod tool into the socket. I???m still not sure why, but I called and asked for a replacement and they sent one right away. They were very friendly to work with and didn???t hesitate at all. I also noticed that the string changing guard was missing and they sent me one at no charge as well. Top notch outfit.

I???ve been playing for 36 years and have owned Yamaha and Takamine acoustic guitars, both with Sitka Spruce tops. If this guitar was stolen I would definitely replace it with another Breedlove, either the same model, or maybe another Custom Shop model. I???m definitely sold on the ???Breedlove tone???. I compared other guitars including Gibson, Laravee, Takamine, Guild, Martin, and Taylor. For me, this one beats them all hands down. But keep in mind that each guitar has it???s own voice. It could be that the individual units I played were not good, so I???m not saying these brands are not good. I just found this particular guitar a keeper.

Overview: This is a mid priced offering by Breedlove built in their USA facility. The builder seems to have moved towards more of a higher volume production with this series with a price-point to compete with other builder???s guitars in this price range like the Taylor 314,414 and the Martin 000-16OMCRE for example. My observation is they exceeded these models and did so at a lower price.

The basic specifications are:
Solid Cedar top
Solid Rosewood cutaway body with full gloss back/sides
Iveroid binding w/ herringbone trim
Abalone Rosette
One-piece bolt-on mahogany neck
Gotoh tuners
Trimmed ebony fret-board
LR Baggs Element active UST
Micro dot fret markers
Pin-less bridge
JLD Truss system
1 ????? Nut width

Sometimes there are glowing reviews that seem to be more about justifying a buying decision than being critical. In the past to some extent I may have been guilty of this but I can say at this point after reviewing three guitars here in the last three years, I still own them and enjoy them. I do a lot of research before buying and don't take it lightly, beside that's part of the fun. When I bought this guitar I had an option to return it within thirty days and did find something that initially un-nerved me a bit and will be mentioned later in the review. I have often heard remarks about Breedlove???s unique tone and observed it first hand. They do have a great tone and very good features.

If you took a Martin HD28 and a Taylor 714, put them in a blender, a very close outcome would be this Breedlove. This is my opinion based on my experience and I know there are some people who will immediately dismiss this but I have played quite a few Martins including the HD28 as well as Taylor models from the 314ce to the GSRC and GSRS. True to the often made remarks, this guitar is very resonant. I had not really understood this property in a guitar until playing Breedlove. And I know someone may read and think well you played a HD28, but this is different; more even, smoother tonally from bass to treble. Another thing is this guitar is a Concert size body with a dreadnaught depth. It just has a certain ???chime??? to it. Breedlove seems to get a tone and volume with light gauge strings on a small body close to what other builders achieve by increasing body size and string gauge. I guess The JLD truss system works like they say it does.
When I was trying the S25, at first I kept comparing it to a Taylor GSRS which is bigger and really expands the tone range. But I changed up and A&B with the Atlas, Taylor 714ce and 814ce. This was a closer comparison but one thing Taylor???s have are ???in your face treble??? party because of the Elixer Nanos (very trebly). Still the Breedlove has a Martin like ???chunkiness??? in their tonal mix giving an edge to my liking.
The overall tone is very balanced and the bass is definitely there, not ???boomy??? but there in away that projects well or sound dead and doesn???t overwhelm the mids and highs. Midrange and Treble are clear with nice string definition/ separation. There definitely is know twingy/twangy anywhere.
Plugged in the UST pick-up is very good but has some of the antiseptic or lack of ambience often seem in UST???s. it is accurate otherwise with very little variation in tone observed when moving the tone adjustment. The best set-up for this rig would be a microphone internal or preferably external, blended with the UST.
I play a mix of styles with a lot of variance in my attack as I play. While I do play mostly fingerstyle, I do some aggresive strumming at times. This guitar really represents the tone you expect to hear from a rosewood guitar and the cedar really smoothes things out. It is responsive to a soft fingerstyle approach and handles a firm attack given the attack is made in a ???non-banging way??? which will just kill the definition/separation.

Playability- well it???s better than OK; definitely not a slim profile neck in my opinion. It plays very well under my very average size hands. The neck feels like it has a little more girth than a Taylor or Martin slim profile neck. Otherwise, it was set up pretty good and frets very well playing fast and easy enough not to cramp a player???s style.
Fit and finish- Here???s the point I was uncomfortable with but that may just be me but this is my review. The finish and ornamentation is better than you would expect from a USA guitar in this price range. This is no excuse; it looks very good. I have only stumbled across one little speck on the treble side binding and one ever so slight little ridge running a couple of inches along the grain in the bass side waist.
The fit is of the trim, neck and components seem much like what I see in other builders except the back kerfing on mine. I noticed it was raised slightly in a several areas on the treble side from the neck block to the waist. The space is about .005-.008 between the guitar back and bottom surface of the kerfing and caused me some concern based on my understanding of kerfing and its??? function. I did call Breedlove and they seemed not to think it was an issue and reaffirmed they would stand behind their product if I were to have a problem so I have no reason not to take them at their word since other advice I have received reassured it is not a critical issue being on the back where sound is reflected and the back is not under the same stress as the top. If I were overly concerned I could return/exchange the guitar but since there appears to be no problem and I am really taken with its??? tone, it stays. That???s saying a lot about how good this thing sounds.

Reliability- The guitar appears to be very solid and well built. This model like other USA models carries a Limited Lifetime Warranty. I believe it will be as reliable as any other offering. The tuners are very good with the instrument tuning easily and staying in tune.

I have called them twice and they answered my questions quickly and were nice to talk to. All reports I have read are they are very supportive of their product and they seem to make sure the customer ownership experience is preserved.

One testament to buyer loyalty is the lack of Breedlove guitars found in classified sales. I realize they don???t produce the volume of Taylor and Martin but in comparison I don???t see a lot of Breedlove guitars for sale. Another thing I???ve picked up on is I have never heard negative remarks about their tone; never any ???too bright??? or ???dark or bassy???. I think their tone is really unique. They don???t appear to be a ???brand??? marketing machine; they just sell a ???tone???. I definitely think players buy Breedlove guitars because of what the guitars are. This is not to say others don???t. I also have a Martin and Taylor; both companies have some serious ???branding??? going on and do make a great product. What I am saying is Breedlove is not as widely known or popular and the players you have played them seem to all say the same things. The bottom line is I could have bought a Taylor for a lot more which was where I was headed. I was kind of testing the waters when I happened across this guitar model on the internet. Less than twenty-four hours later I found, tried, and purchased one because I have been looking for this tone for 20 of the almost 30 years and I guess to some degree I was victim of marketing. Breedlove has broken that with this well priced package.