Cort Earth Mini

Mini dreadnought - 3/4 scale (22.8 inch).
Solid spruce top, really blonde, with a very light satin finish. No binding which gives it an organic feel and look. No pickguard.
Mahogany back and sides, laminated, with "open pore" finish. If i didnt know better id say it had no finish.
Rosewood fingerboard, mahogany neck with satin finish.
Chinese made.
Fishman electronics (volume, bass, mid, treble, presence)
Accurate inbuilt tuner!!
Umm, scalloped bridge so pins sit a fair bit lower behind bridge.
No strap nut on the neck side, i might screw one in when i find somewhere appropriate to put it. The neck heel is pretty pointy.

My mate and i went for a drive to check out a music store that we'd heard a few good stories about. We were actually making the trip because my friend needed new drum skins.. but i made sure i had some money on my card just in case. Id been thinking about buying a cheap acoustic (maybe even nylon string) for summer roadtrip campfire jams and to sit on couch or bed wherever at uni next year. The earth mini was sitting at the bottom of the staircase up to the drum section, id seen the mini on the cort website a few weeks earlier, and had a strum.

Great!
I picked it up expecting no bottom end, harsh mids and tinny highs. Not so at all!
The bottom end is tight but there, the mids are smooth, and the highs are crisp. Id expect this to change when the strings get crap. Everything is balanced surprisingly well. Its not a very loud guitar, but with a top the size of an electric, you dont expect that.
I asked to play through an amp in the shop- of course they gave me a heaps lush fender acoustasonic. But before i played i set the eq boosting the bass heaps, cutting the mids out, and leaving a little bit of treble, expecting the worst from the 3/4. My settings were rubbish. I pulled everything flat and was really impressed with the balance of the guitar. I found the sweet spot with presence at full, 3/4 treble, no mid, a touch of bass.
Im going to lose my credibility here - but through an amp, youd barely know you were listening to a mini.

The top is blonder than i like, and very little visible grain, but in the short while iv had it its darkened slightly already. Looking better.
Everything lines up well, really well actually. I couldnt find fault in the construction of the guitar.
The nearly-no finish is sexy, but i dont know if its going to get grotty soon.
I like that the neck is one piece - no join at the headstock, and its got a good slant too.
The action was pretty high, but cort left heaps of meat on the bridge and it only took the guys at the shop 5mins to file it down. Its great now, i was fearing buzz when dropping it, but nothing even close to buzz.
It only took 5 mins to file down, but putting the bridge pins back in, the guy broke one, and looked at the others, and 3 of the 5 others had cracks in them. He went to his box of replacement pins, and none of them seemed to fit, they were all too big. Cort must use a fractionally smaller size. He ended up taking pins out of another earth mini, and putting all the good ones in my guitar. Im going to order a whole heap of pins from cort.
Intonation is fine.
Nut is good, except i might dry lube it a bit, the G string seems a bit sticky over the nut when tuning.

Im giving it a 6 for problem with bridge pins and sticky nut. Apart from that it would have received a 8.


I forgot to mention.. Its SO CUTE!!

Once i get a strap pin in the neck heel somewhere il play it live for sure (i only play guitar at church (bass is my band instrument), so no windmill kicks and thrashes). Its got such a nice tone plugged in, it compares against my other full size walden acoustic. But the 3/4 is a lot nicer to play.
The hardwear will last, but i suspect il prob be replacing bridge pins every time i take them out.
Im a little doubtful about the finish, the top finish is very thin, and almost non existant on back and sides. The neck has adequate finish, so i suppose this guitar would last if you were playing with a shirt on, but as a bedroom/couch/roadtrip/camping strummer its going to get a bit of body oil on it. We'l see how it goes.

Havent dealt with the company.
I will soon though i guess, ordering bridge pins.

Iv been playing guitar on and off for about 13 years, solidly for about 9 or 10. Im more of a takamine, taylor enthiusiast.. although im from australia, im not too impressed by maton acoustics - not enough bright character.
Yeh - $1000AUD+ guitars.
Im very impressed by the little earth mini.
The fact that i paid $420 puts a huge smile on my face.
If it had a maton badge on it, the price tag would be upwards of $850.
It suits my situation perfectly. Surprisingly high quality guitar, with a surprisingly good tone, thats the right size to chuck in the car for roadtrips and sits so well on your knee playing away just before bed, and its very very cute (chicks dig alot).
Did i say that i paid $420 for it??
Im stoked, i would definately buy another one if it was stolen. I wont lose it, its not going to spend much time far from my line of sight.

Giving it an 8.5

Mini Dreadnaught acoustic, solid spruce top, laminate mahogany back and sides, mahogany neck with dovetail joint, comes with gig bag (with pocket for tuner/picks/capo/slide/whatever you can fit, a handle as well as a single shoulder strap) and is strung with D'addario EXP 11s

I've been playing guitar for 8 years now, and regularly play around an hour or more per day. I bought this guitar as I commute to university, meaning I am guitarless for most of the day... well not anymore! An important feature of this guitar was the size, It's small enough that if I put it on my knee on the bus the headstock only goes to around head height and its not any wider than I am, meaning its a lot easier to take on public transport than a full size. It's also light weight and the gig bag is reasonably padded, but I guess I'd have liked a bit more padding. I can't comment on whether or not the case is waterproof.

I'm giving it an 8 as it has all the features you'd need though the gig bag could be a little nicer.

Being a small bodied, short scale guitar it lacks the bass response and punch of a full-size acoustic. However this guitar wasn't bought to replace or sit alongside my full size acoustic, it was bought to be taken with me on the bus every day to play at university between lectures and studying.

Of all the travel acoustics I played(several models of baby Taylor, little Martin, Vintage travel acoustic and the Cort mini with the electronics) I found this to be the only one that sounded 'right' for its size. The martin to me sounded too bassy, it lacked the high end zing I look for in acoustic guitars. The baby taylors and the vintage travel guitars were all great however they just didn't speak to me the same way this instrument did. I'd say the Cort is a little mellower than a baby Taylor, which in this case just seemed to suit. Plus the Cort was significantly cheaper than both.
The more expensive Cort with the pickup in it was cool, but the massive bit of wood missing in the side to fit the pre-amp seemed to have an effect on unplugged tone.. it was just way too lacking in bass compared to the regular acoustic. If you really want a travel acoustic with a pickup in it I'd recommend looking at the electro-little martin with the solid top (LX1E I think), it sounded pretty good plugged in and still had that little martin 'small but big' sound if that's what suits you.

I'd describe the instrument as being very loud for its size when a pick is used. It lacks in bass response but doesn't sound unbalanced for its size. It has what I'd describe as a sweet tone, it is not harsh by any means and seems to suit being played in higher registers due to the more 'light and airy' tone it has compared to a full size. I often jam on it with a capo on the 5th fret as it seems to be a sweet spot. The guitar itself is very responsive and resonates well.

With newer strings it was loud enough to keep up with my house mate's violin in a jam session though I'd recommend a good full size guitar if you seriously intend to jam with other musicians.

I'm giving it an 8 as it's spot on for the size of the guitar, though you'd be disappointed if this was your only guitar at the expense of a full size acoustic. I still use mine at home though not as much as my fullsize, as it's a cheap-ish guitar I'm happy leaving it out leaning on my desk to play whenever I feel like a quick jam rather than getting my BSG jumbo out of its case.

The action was spot on, no buzzing, and the intonation seems pretty decent... I've not felt the need to get my tuner and check so that says something.

The tuners are nice and smooth.

The nut, bridge and frets all seem flawless.

There were a few little flaws with finishing - a black mark on the back of the guitar, I have no idea where it came from. There isn't any binding on the guitar and there's a tiny (minute!) bit of overhang between the top and the sides on the upper left bout of the guitar, but I had to run my hand accross it to find it. Overall I don't expect this to have any implications for the guitar.

A 7 due to the flaws. Otherwise, operationally (what matters to me) the guitar is a perfect 10.

I recently changed the strings and upon bridge pin removal one of the pins snapped. Luckily I'd just bought a set of black tusq bridge pins to replace the white plastic ones (I wanted the bridge pins to match the ebony tuning heads). I don't know if this was an issue with Cort bridge pins or plastic pins in general (which I've heard to be less durable) as my other acoustics already had wood pins.

Otherwise the rest of the guitar seems reasonably solid.

A 6 as the bridge pin malfunction would've rendered the guitar temporarily unusable for someone without ready replacements. However I'm hoping that this was an issue on my guitar alone and not a widespread one. I have friends with Cort acoustics and they've never had this problem.

Warranty is a year I think. Not needed to speak to Cort yet so no rating on customer support.

I've been playing for 8 years and have had a lot of guitars. Until the past year I'd mostly been playing electric guitars (of note a US std strat, godin LGSP90, Ibanez RG570) until recently when I'd been able to afford a good quality acoustic (BSG J27CF- handmade jumbo cutaway, spruce top rosewood back and sides) to replace my quite frankly rubbish sounding (but nice playing) Ibanez acoustic.

Buying the BSG (after a long search for an acoustic that I wanted to play) made me realise how much I love acoustic guitars, and made me miss it while at university. It got to the point where I was leaving the library earlier every day to go home and play it (I don't live on campus so lose around an hour to 90 minutes a day traveling depending on bus regularity), so the Cort guitar guitar was a sort of 'academic compromise' for me... meaning I could do work and play acoustic guitar without having to go too far away from the library. Surprisingly it's turned out to be a great instrument that gets passed around a lot between my friends at social gatherings at university.

If it got lost or stolen I'd consider my situation before buying another one. Though I really like the guitar the main reason I bought it was to take it with me when traveling as a compromise instrument when I was either worried I'd damage my BSG or I'd be using public transport. If I was in a situation where I did not need to take a travel guitar with me I probably wouldn't own the instrument as a full size acoustic just sounds better.

I'm giving it a 7.5, rounded up to an 8. Not a perfect instrument, but a nice guitar to travel with and a refreshing light and small tone to contrast my jumbo if I ever feel the need.