Admira Teresa

A very nice looking guitar: I'm not too knowledgeable about this stuff, but - cedar top, ebony fingerboard, pretty inlays. Plenty of attention to detail. Even the machine heads look nice. Came with a case, though not the type that would withstand serious bashing.

It was little bright at first, but it has aged very well: now the sound is very rounded, each note clear & defined. Not the loudest guitar in the world.

Being a Spanish guitar it is presumably intended for classical, but everything sounds good on it - brazilian (what I play mostly on this), latin, blues

Excellent set up - action just right for this kind of guitar. Much easier to play at the higher frets than other classicals I've played.

Flawless craftmanship.

Like most classical guitars, I imagine, this has to be handled with care (& some marks on it already indicate that I didn't - shame, but only cosmetic)

I've been playing for 30 years, & for the first 20 shunned "nylon string" guitars as second rate & boring, the province of plinkety-plink-so-what nerds - give me my dreadnought, my ES335! Then again, when I began, I wanted to sound like Jimmy Page, which the teacher didn't consider "real music".

I returned to the nylon string through Brazilian music. This guitar is a lot of fun to play, & as such an incentive to explore the repertory available for the instrument.

I went into the shop here in Toledo with the intention of buying myself a 40th birthday treat. I played the guitars in my original budget (which were very nice), then asked the (unfriendly) salesman to show me something really good: he gave me the Teresa - what a difference! It was (& is) a joy to play! My fingers seem to glide across the finger board, the music comes alive.

If I lost it I'd explore other guitars, but through owning a guitar like this I've realised that you get what you pay for with classical guitars, & spending as much as you can afford is worth it for the hours of enjoyment you get out of it: you end up wanting to play more.

I've also learnt that guitars, being made of wood, are very much alive. This guitar sounds a lot better 3 years on than when I bought it.

Still don't understand why they don't put at least one dot, by the seventh fret say, on classical guitars - it's not like it's cheating! If I've been playing electric/steel strung, I get confused, so I end up putting a scrap of post-it by the seventh fret.

**** First up, Admira make classical guitars so these reviews should be under Acoustic rather than Electric guitars. If someone from Harmony Central has to read this to approve it then maybe you could move the category then delete this comment? ****

This is an all-solid Spanish classical guitar. Cedar top, rosewood back and sides, ebony fingerboard. No electronics, no cutaway. Admira do classical guitars with electronics so I'm not going to mark this down for not having them - I didn't want electronics in this guitar.

Tuners appear to be OK, which is to say they have worked fine so far. It would have been nice if it had come with a case included, but maybe that's unrealistic for the price.

Sound is qute nice. Sustain isn't wonderful but tones are good with vibrant basses and fairly clear highs. Strings (D'Addario Pro Arte) prefer to be picked quite hard to get the best out of them. Seems to resonate a bit on G#, and a bit more definition in the mid-range would be better.

Action was high when I got the guitar, but that's what I'd expect. I've lowered it since. Top wood is nice, back and sides less so but no complaints for a guitar of this price. Some of the neck carving around the head is a bit rough, and there appears to be some dust under the finish on one of the sides.

The circular cutout on the body end of the fingerboard didn't match up to the soundhole in the way that it should; either the fingerboard isn't on straight (seems OK to me) or it was cut with a slightly smaller diameter cutter than it should have been.

The saddle slot in the bridge has a slight upward curve along its length, which isn't ideal. Also the saddle itself is a bit too narrow for the slot, meaning it can lean over when strings are brought up to tension. This may be the shop's fault or it may be the builders.

Feels quite robust. I don't expect to gig with it, though it may find its way into the odd performance here or there. There isn't really anything there to go wrong though.

Not needed so far.

I've been playing for 22 years and I have three other acoustic guitars, all steel strung. This is my first classical and I really just got it for my own pleasure as a variety from the others. Were it lost or stolen I'd consider getting another, but then I'd consider a different manufacturer as well just to broaden my classical experience. The guitar isn't good enough to make me say 'Wow, I'd definitely get another'.

That said, it's a nice guitar. I didn't get to play it before buying, but I tried an Admira Rosa and quite liked it so I bought this on the strength of my Rosa trial. I tried plenty other classicals, and virtually all had a muddy, dark tone with not much clarity at all.