Crafter CE15/N

I believe a 2005 with satin finish. Classical body shape with cutaway. Nylon strings. Very nice open gear classical tuners. Nice, wide classical neck with rosewood fret board. Solid cedar top.
These guitars are made in Korea, but don't let that fool you. It's not an American company that sent it's production to Korea to be cheaper. It's a Korean based company. Very high quality, but still decent price. It has an excellent L.R. Baggs element pickup with a good 3 band eq with a few other controls too. No on-board tuner though.

Piezo pickups usually piss me off. But it turns out they work MUCH better with nylon string guitars than steel. It has a small degree of that quack, but what little bit it has is very appropriate somehow. Unplugged tone is superb. I was skeptical about the tone of the dao wood back and sides and could find very little info on the wood. Combined with the cedar top you get a beautiful classical tone a bit brighter that with rosewood. It's a good projecting tone. (BTW, dao wood is a tone wood native to korea and since I got this guitar several other manufacturers have begun to use it.) I give it an 8 because I've had the luxury of playing a $3000 Ramerez and that tone haunts me to this day, but let me stress that I did a lot of searching and this is the BEST sounding acoustic/electric nylon string under $1000.

Action was perfect. One cosmetic flaw on the binding near the electronics. I love satin finishes and this one was done so well. I encourage any serious acoustic player to look into Crafter.

The down side to a good satin finish is the lack of protection. However, I have dinged it a few times and there are no marks on it. It's a good solid classical instrument. Though not made for months of touring with a rock and roll band, it's very durable for what it is. I give it a ten as a classical instrument. Compared to a strat or a boss pedal, I supposed it would be a 6 or something.

The guy at the shop told me that Crafter's policy is really good. If you find a flaw during warranty coverage they replace the instrument. Pretty sweet if that's true.

I've been playing for 11 years and have studied classical and jazz and play plenty of rock as well. This guitar is a great jazz guitar on top of being a great classical guitar. It is also perfect for those Beatles tunes when George pulls out the nylon string. I'm really impressed with this guitar and the company. If it were lost or stolen I'd get another, no question.