Aria AK-30CE

2004 made made in China. 19 Frets cutaway body. Spruce top, Mahogany sides and back and neck with a rosewood fingerboard. Piezo pick-up with 4 band EQ. This a classical guitar with a wide neck. It included no accessories other than an Allen wrench presumably for the internal truss rod accessed via the sound hole.

I own a steel string acoustic already and wanted an inexpensive classical to work into finger style and wanted the nylon string sound. A very experienced guitarist friend of mine said it "sounded sweet" and that it was impressive what you could buy for so little these days. The guitar does have a sweet sound, but it's not as good as my Yamaha which probably says something. I changed the strings out and that helped. The stock strings were made by a company I hadn't heard of and were trashed very quickly, see Finish below

The Action seemed fine from the factory though higher than either my electric or steel string. No buzzing of the strings though and I may try lowering the action after a while of playing it like it is. The Piezo pick-up sounds good through my amp with no feed back or humming. It has good access too, by rotating the face of the EQ to replace the battery. The fret finish is terrible. many burrs. I did a lot of string bends etc to attempt to wear them off and this trashed the stock strings (no big deal though). They still have some rough spots and when I feel motivated I'll remove all the strings again, tape up the fret board and lightly sand or file the frets. It doesn't seem worth taking to a pro for a guitar of this price. Otherwise the finish is good. The sound hole pattern is irritating as it is a decal that was varnished over (decal looks OK). The part of the bridge where the strings attach is a piece of sticky plastic with a wood like pattern on it. I removed this and the associated sticky stuff. This reveals some silver screw heads which bother me less, but will probably find some way to cover.

I'll mention one last bizarre thing here. Guitar has an crummy smell. I expect it to be the varnish or glue out gassing and that it'll go away eventually.

I've had this to short a time to comment on durability. Seems as solid as my afore mentioned Yamaha and that holds up well. The finish is good with no major defects. Small inconsistencies along the neck and the holes where the tuning pegs are. I'll rate it as average. I wouldn't gig with this with out a back up if I was relying on the electronics.

Haven't dealt with them. Their website is pretty useless though. Wanted to find more info about the company and found it under links finally. They don't give much info about the guitars either. Wanted to find out where it was made etc and no such info there.

Been Playing for a couple of years.
If it were lost or stolen, given my current financial restraints, I'd buy it again. Given more money, I'd go with a Dean or Ibanez.

This is a basic, generic cutaway, classical electro-acoustic guitar. That's why I rated it as average eveywhere except for Finish, where the fret burrs pulled it down.