Carvin CL450

All standard features. Base model with cedar top. All wood and hardware are of high quality. Very nice.

Loud for a thinline. Crisp and clear.

Factory did not set it up. I recieved this guitar with the truss rod cranked so extremely that there was a back bow in the neck and strings were practically resting on the frets. One big flaw worth mentioning is the neck was mis-aligned during construction. The strings were shifted about 1/8" towards the high E side on the fret board causing the high E string to roll off the edge of the rounded, and polished fret-end. The finish is pretty good, these guys can do gloss very well.

Carvin could be the leader in this field. They use all the best materials and seem to have the concept in mind, but I don't understand how this guitar got out the door. Carvin should be asking all of these review questions, that would be a start in the right direction. I'm not going to play guitar swap for 6-8 months across the country and risk the same disapointment again. It took me a couple of days to get this guitar in shape to play. I fixed the string centering problem, now I have a used, screwed with Carvin and not a new one. I would use this for a gig, it still is a great sounding guitar.

I could have returned it for a refund or rebuild, but I refuse to sit and wait to see them screw up again. When I was ordering this guitar the salesman compared it to a Taylor, now I'm considering buying a Taylor. I will be buying another classical in the next year and I'm sure it won't be a Carvin (unless I can play it first, and examine every inch of it before they charge my credit card).

Like I said before, Carvin could be the best, but I think unless you are famous They are not going to check your guitar before it leaves the factory, or maybe they only check every other one, I don't know.Their gaurantees and promise of quality cintrol really did not mean anything in my case, But I don't want to discourage everyone else, I urge everyone to order a Carvin, give them your credit card # and sit and wait to see what you get. I'm sure my situation was not the norm, look at all those stars who use these guitars, do you think they check their guitars before they deliver them? This guitar is not a hunk of junk, but not a fantastic value either. The promise of quality standards and checking it at the different stations while building it is where I feel I got the short end of the deal. What they advertise is wonderful what was delivered was not. But this won't happen to anyone else, I'm sure this was an isolated incident.

Carvin offers options at a very reasonable price.
Gloss cedar top
Ebony fretboard w/ stainless jumbo frets (the big ones 55 high x 110 wide)
High dollar gold tuners (I expected good ones, but not this good, they match the wood grain, AWESOME!!!).
Fishman pickup system always a good choice.
Adjustable truss rod ( a must nowadays, this makes the guitar, without it, its worthless, I will never get another guitar w/o an adjustable truss rod.)
Bone nut and saddle.
Gold output jack plate.
Two strap buttons.
I'm giving Features a 9 because I think there are more options that could be offered that would make this the perfect guitar (I will get into this later), but for the $$$ what you get as far as options and features is a bargain.

I play jazz, classical and folk and this guitar fits the bill in every catagory. For being two and a half inches thick this guitar is very loud. It's just as loud as my other full size classical but maybe lacking in low end a little, but you wouldn't know it unless you were playing them side by side, and even then its not that different because the highs and mids are so solid. I was suprised to find that the yucky soft factory strings sounded so good. I did change them right away to D'Adario extra hard tensions, the sound just got better. If there were no such thing as extra hard tension strings I would still say this guitar sounded great with the soft ones. Plugged in this guitar sounds fabulus as well. If I could give this guitar an 11 for sound, I would.

As far as I'm concern this guitar was not set up at the factory, but that's fine with me. How's the factory suppose to know how I want my action? I've been playing for 30 years and been building guitars for 10 ten years, Setting up this guitar myself was easy, I think the novice could do it also without too much trouble. Really all I had to do was turn the truss rod to put some relief in the neck. THe saddle height was fine, if anything the action is too low. By putting the proper relief in the neck I got less than 8/64 on all strings at the 12th fret. Part of this may be due to the high jumbo frets, which was the main reason I got that option, I like big frets, they improve tone and enhance playability.
Gloss finish is perfect.
Cedar bookmatch top is perfect.
Mahogany back is one piece and perfect as well.
The 1 7/8" width at the nut will take some getting use to as well as the radius fretboard. I prefer flat and wide, strings tend to slide off the edge. Thats whay I give this area an 8

Time will tell.

I've bought tons of Carvin stuff and never had to call for service.
One year warranty and 10 day trial seems short.
Nice folks when ordering.
Guitartraq is so useless, I wish they'd get rid of it.

The options I'd like to see for the CL450 are:
black saddle and nut.
black tuner keys.
output jack in the rear strap button.
maple fretboard.
built in tuner.
Basically I had to buy a case I didn't need or want. If they are going to charge you for a case, I would like to have a choice of what kind. The only case that was offered is sturdy and high quality but not what I would choose. Its heavy and bulky. A case is about protection and that it does.
I really like this guitar and plan on keeping it a long time.

Purchased summer of 2005. Standard CL450 with cedar top, mahogany body, and clear gloss finish.

The nylon strings as supplied were way too soft for me, and tended to rattle against the frets. I play fingerstyle with fingerpicks and will alternate from nylon string to steel string to dobro for any given performance. After switching to GHS Vanguard Pure Nickle Flatwound Strings, Hard tension, the guitar just came alive. I've started using it for 80% of my material on gigs. Great tone straight into my Bose PAS. The CL450 is very responsive to picking attack and also a pleasure to play unplugged.

Typical Carvin quality. Just outstanding. It's a beautiful instrument.

The guitar is just fine for gigs. With a braced cedar acoustic top, one should take the normal precautions when gigging with an acoustic.

I've been playing for close to 40 years. This is the first nylon string guitar I've added to my collection. It's a keeper and has enabled me to introduce a new and soulful dimension to my musical performances. The hard tension, smooth-wound strings made a huge difference, especially for fingerstyle playing with fingerpicks.

Made in august of 2002, mine is a Lefty version of the CL450. The features as mentioned before are available from several sources including previous reviews, so I wont dally on them. As is always the case with Carvin you get a good guitar for much less than other brands.

I really love the sound of it acoustically. Less their is less bass response than a Normal sized classical, but it responds very well to dynamic changes and has a clear full voice. I mainly play improv new agey/smooth jazz stuff with it, though it has also been used for some prog rock stuff. My setup when playing live is Cl450 into a Line 6 Pod Xt st to its tube inst preamp, with comp, chorus, and chamber reverb. I use both pre and post compression that is in the Pod. I also use the 1x6x9 speaker cab with a codensor mic sim these give me a nice sound which has a bit of modern flavor to the sound. from that the signal goes to the board and out to the mains and monitors. I have a boss loop station placed in the FX loop of the board so I can build loops utilizing, a SR-16 drum machine, and a Kramer 5 string into a Pod set to the Bassman sim. this allows me to setup a "3 piece" groove to play over. The Cl450 has worked great in this roll though it took awhile to eliminate harsh string slide noize.

Beautifully setup needed only minor tuning when delivered. Stays in tune extremely well. I have yet to detect any flaws in the paint or craftmenship of the guitar.

With proper care this like all Carvins will last through my lifetime.
If stolen I would replace it immediately

On par with my other orders with Carvin.
They always respond quickly when called upon in the past.

Great guitar, well worth its pricetag.
I have been playing for 19 years. And have owned several Carvin Guitars. This is just another great add to my collection.

I'm not going to go into the features of this guitar, because you can read about them in the previous review or on the Carvin web site. It's pretty much a stock classical guitar, which doesn't have a lot of features anyway. But I'll describe my guitar briefly. I ordered the guitar almost completely stock, except for the finish and Dunlop strap locks. It's got a clear matte satin finish over mahogany back, sides and neck. The top is AAA cedar, with ebony fretboard and bridge. I ordered a tung oil finish on the back of the neck, which feels fantastic. The tuners are gold, and the pegs are a pearlized bronze color. It's really a gorgeous guitar, not bad for $930 shipped! Fishman Prefix Pro electronics are great. The case is a rectangular, wooden case with black tolex covering. Much nicer than I anticipated, and the guitar doesn't move a millimeter inside!

Unplugged the guitar is impressively loud, but a little light on the bass end, which is to be expected of a small-bodied guitar. Plugged in through my AR.Acoustic amp, it sounds simply fantastic with no feedback at all. This is a huge improvement over my Breedlove classical (with similar electronics) that now sells for three times more!

Initially I was very disappointed in the finish, as the body was covered with fingerprints and "rag wipe" marks that looked like they were part of the finish. But several doses of guitar polish took care of it. As the previous poster stated, the clear matte finish is very difficult to clean and to keep clean. It's very attractive though, with the otherwise understated looks of this guitar. The wood is simply gorgeous and the fretwork is perfect. But there's a shiny swipe on the soundboard below the bridge that I'm having a terrible time geting rid of. It's gradually disappearing though, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's a bit of glue residue from attaching the bridge. Regardless it's hardly visible now, so a few more polishings should do it in entirely. The action is higher than I anticipated, although I didn't believe the salesperson when he insisted the action would be a sixteenth of an inch even on a classical guitar!

Seems very solid.

Haven't dealt with them yet. I wasn't impressed by the salespeople, but they're not classical players. They're probably fine if you're buying an electric guitar.

I've been playing for over 30 years, classical and fingerstyle jazz. In addition to this classical guitar, I own a Fender fat telecaster, which I've strung with .011s and play through a SF Princeton Reverb. It's surprisingly good for jazz, though I'm starting to look at the Holdsworth Fatboy.... ;-) Since I have small hands and am only 5'0" tall, a full-sized classical guitar is just too big for me. A couple years ago I purchased a Breedlove classical which initially seemed a big improvement, but the neck was just too narrow, and I kept pulling the outer strings off the fretboard. The extra eighth of an inch wider and somewhat rounder Carvin classical neck seemed a good compromise between the Breelove and the Hirade I sold several years ago. I highly recommend the tung oiled neck!

This is a classical nylon string made in 2001 in San Diego. Single cut away with electronics. Solid bookmatched cedar top with Fishman Prefix Pro pick up and preamp. Includes volume, notch filter, phase switch, bass, middle, treble and brilliance. 2 piece mahogany neck, 1 piece mahogany back. Sides are from 1 piece mahogany hollowed out with top and back glued on. Very unusual that the sides are not bent. This must be a huge waste of wood. Total body thickness: 2 1/2". Set neck. Clear glossy finish. Sound hole has no rosette and edges of the hole are radiused which is cool looking and smooth to the touch. Has mahogany veneered headstock. Traditional ebony wood bridge. Slightly radiused ebony fingerboard with medium jumbo frets. Open-geared traditional tuners, adjustable truss rod at headstock - no cover. You have to buy the case with this guitar. They won't ship it unless you do. Also, dont order the satin matte finish, fingerprints are very difficult to remove and look awful in the light.

This was a replacement for a beautiful CL450 they messed up on. It had a huge greasy stain on the top under the finish that couldn't be fixed, so they built me another. I loved that first one. It had incredible tone and always stayed in tune. This new one is completely different. It's dead. The big heavy bracing give it a dull, lifeless sound. If they had used thin, light scallopped bracing for the top, it would've made a world of difference. However, plugged in is a another story. It sounds very full and sweet. No tweaking the controls to get a nice clear, ringing tone and with good bass response too. Unfortunatly, I almost never plug it in. This was a wedding present from my wife so I'm keeping it forever. I just hope it breaks in and loosens up, otherwise I'll have to go in through the sound hole and shave those braces.

Action was medium. No fret buzz, but the bridge buzzed on one string. The cedar top was perfectly quarter sawn but had uneven coloring across it. Questionable AA as specified. Thick finish on top may hinder the natural wood resonance. The ebony bridge and fingerboard are exquisite. Jet black and SMOOTH. I have 5 Carvins and they all have excellent fingerboards. I love that ebony. It makes rosewood feel cheap and porous. No other flaws worth mentioning.

Well built quality construction. Sturdy gold plated hardware. Thick finish will last some time. Seems dependable. Would use without a backup.

They try to be helpful. But they have a hard time understanding exactly what I want. When I said I wanted very light colored cedar and very dark colored mahogany, they gave me something close to that but lack the conviction to actually go to the wood-selector person and help with that process. I've had to send back 3 guitars based on that factor alone. I ask for one thing and I get another. When they messed up my first CL450, it took them 4 weeks to make me another after I waited 7 weeks for the first one. And they called that a rush order.

I've play for 30 years. I have all kinds of guitars, basses, amps, effects, drums, keys, etc. I even build my own solid bodies, so I know what I'm talking about. They need to lighten up on the weight of the bracing and increase their quality control. I've seen some unaccetable work from these guys like misaligned necks, spoiled finishes, worm holes, knots in the wood and loose hardware. They used to better but now I don't trust the quality anymore. On the other hand, the Carvin Colbalt series of dreadnoughts are surprizingly remarkable and they're made in Korea. I cannot be more impressed with the quality of materials and craftmanship that comes from that country. I own the C850 and it is by far one of the best guitars I have ever played at any price. I highly recommend this one. Bur watch out for the San Diego acoustics. They're overpriced and lack the sound and materials quality needed by demanding musicians. They just don't have the experience and expertise to manufacture quality acoustic instruments.