Hohner HC09E

by far the best i have ever had if only it came in different color options.

I was supprised to find such a high quality guitar at such a great price! There are a few little(barely noticeable) flaws(A decorative piece of the bridge slightly off center, and there are few other small cosmetic flaws. I notice them only because I've looked over my guitar from top to bottom, but otherwise I probly wouldnt have noticed.). The only thing I think I want to change are the tuning keys, they look okay but I dont like the plastic material they are made of(I could live with em, but the rest of the guitar looks expesive and well made. The plastic Tuning keys just dont seem to fit in). This guitar has 18 frets, which is about tipical for a Classical guitar. Another supriseing feature about this guitar was that it is a clasissical/ellectric guitar(That was what sealed the deal for me)!Although I havent tryed hooking the guitar up to an Amp I have hooked it up to my computer(useing a mixer) to see how it sounds, and sure enough it works like a charm! I truly doubt there is another guitar with this quality in its price range.

No buzzing, and the sound carrys well. I compair this one to my last classical guitar(Which I purchased from the Home Shopping network and wasnt all too happy with), and find that this guitar's sound has a rich sound that leaves nothing to be desired! I tested quite a few Classical guitars at the store and from what I see this guitar has compairable sound to guitars 3 times its price. Although I am sure there are Classical guitars that sound better, in this price range there are probly verry few that have sound this nice.(Though I must say, the 3rd string doesnt seem to sound as full as the others, but it may be that way with all guirars, or I think I may have to tune it.)

This guitar has great Action, and it seems to have been put together well. There are a few small cosmetic flaws here and there but most guitars do have them.

I realy cant say, i havent had it long enough to know. Although it seems to be pretty durable as far as Classical guitars go.

Mars seems to have good costomer support, I've dealt with them.
As a matter of fact I returned a Squire Stagemaster HSH and a Fender Amp to get this guitar, and they gave me no trouble at all getting a refund.

Great guitar at a great price, If this guitar was to get stolen I would buy the same model. When I buy more expensive guitars I probly would still have this model of guitar to practice with.
I am verry happy with it(And I am not easily pleased).

when i was looking for a classical gutiar (as an amatuer) i looked at everything from 99.95 guitars to 2000.00 dollar fernandez's.. i havent heard a classical with a better sound unless it was like over a grand! this thing is hard to beat for a 150.00!!!!

my guitar's fit and finish is EXCELLENT!! great wood,decent hardware, and a liller tone!

ive only been playing guitar for 4 years and this is my 1st classical... and for the money you can not beat the value!! great sound, beautiful guitar

ive got 2 other guitars.. a washburn acoustic,and a lotus les paul copy and this lil hohner... i keep finding myself picking up the lil hohner more than the other two.. i like all kinds of guitar music rock,country and classical i think ive got a good starter collection!

This is a classical 18 fret guitar, and I don't know about the country of origin. It is an entry level guitar, but the top of the line among their entry level classicals (HC... models). It has a spruce top with mahogany back and sides. The fretboard and bridge are rosewood, and the bridge has an beautiful inlay type top on it. There is binding on the body and neck of the guitar, with the body binding multi-layered. The guitar has a passive pickups with tone and volume controls tope-mounted. The guitar is a classical, so it is obviously nylon stinged. For an entry level guitar, it has good features, keeping in mind the price I think the features are great. I must qualify my opinion, however. I have been playing guitar for around 5 years off and on, and really heavily during the past year. I played mostly electrics and rock music until about 4 months ago, so I'm not exactly an expert in classical and I haven't tried many classical guitars. My opinions are based on comparisons with the few classicals I have played and the numerous electrics I have played. Although there is no way to compare an electric to a classical, I can compare the relative quality level and the playability of the instrument. I will not give an opinion for this category however simply because the guitar is a classical. There is not much difference in features between models, and although this guitar has a pickup, I don't use it and personally think classicals sound bad amplified. The only reason I bought this instead of the HC09 is that MARS didn't have it in stock, and Guitar Center has given me horrible problems in the past. I will NEVER buy ANYTHING from them again.

For an entry level guitar ($160), I think the sound is great. Again, I don't have enough experience to say what exactly a "good" classical sounds like, but in this price range it was the best among the others that I compared it to. I have heard Yamaha does great work on guitars in this price range (heard it from a doctoral cadidate in guitar, who also happens to be my guitar teacher, whose opinion I trust highly), but they didn't have any Yamahas in stock and I was happy enough with this guitar to buy without comparison to Yamaha. The sound if full and rich. There is one slight problem in that the low E string doesn't resonate as loud as the other strings, but the quality of the guitar's sound really took me by surprise. I didn't think I would be able to get this high quality sound from such an inexpensive instrument. I give this column an 8 because it does have some flaws, but compared to others IN THIS PRICE RANGE, it was incredible sounding. Obviously if I were comparing it to all classical guitars I would have to give it a much lower rating.

The guitar was perfect when I bought it. The intonation is great to my ears, I could only detect a slight variation from dead on on somne strings, most strings were as well intonated as my ears at least. The action is medium height, but I have never played a classical with low action. Before I bought it there were no buzzed on any string or any fret if the note was correctly fretted. Most string buzzing on any guitar is due to player technique; I cannot count the amount of people that I have seen placing their fingers dead in the middle of the two frets rather than right behind the fret like they should. I too am guilty of this; for the first 3 years I played I never knew how to fret the notes right. The few lessons I had were with poor instructors who never bothered to correct me when I was using bad technique. Anyway, fretted correctly, there are no string buzzes. A few frets do buzz a little even if I fret the note a tiny bit wrong though; it's a little finicky, but once again the other guitars I tried in this price range (can't remember the brand names) had horrible buzzing at most of the frets on several strings. The finish of the guitar is beautiful, the rosette and bridge inlays are installed perfectly. The pattern isn't intricate of course (due to the price of the guitar), but there are no problems with the assembly of the guitar. The wood is nice, but the top is a little uneven, although it is difficult to spot unless you have the guitar at the perfect angle in very brightly lit areas. The fretboard and neck are flat and seem to be of high quality manufacture also. Other guitars in this price range had cracked uneven fretboards which were poorly secured to the neck. The fretboard does have some wear on the bottom, but that is because I bought the floor model. It is obviously from an impact, not the guitar's fault. All in all it is 200% better than I expected to find in the under $200 price range. I qualify my rating once again as based on comparison to other classicals in this price range. It beat them all hands down. The quality to dollar ratio is incredible. Think about this - try finding an electric guitar for under $200 that has a flat fretboard and no string buzzing problem.

I can't really rate this yet because I haven't had the guitar long enough. Although I think the guitar is made well, it doesn't seem to be indestructible. I will update this column later once I ahve had the guitar for a while.

MARS would back me up if I had a problem I'm sure. They are great, their outright return policy is 45 days no questions asked. I have used that before, returning a very expensive piece of equipment on the last day because I didn't like it. Try getting service from those commission-paid liars at Guitar Center (they flat out lied to me 3 times while I was looking at my Marshall amp, just so they could make the sale. They sold me a used amp as new!!!!! I got home with it, found demo hang-tags on the amp and non-factory tubes inside!!!!! Never trust them, the guitar dept. manager himself made the deal). As far a Hohner, I have never dealt with them, although their USA web site doesn't have information on guitar contacts. They provide customer service numbers for harmonicas and accordions only. Pretty weak if you ask me. Since I bought the floor model of my guitar, I don't have documentation, I and I would not be able to contact them should I want to. Until they put up numbers on their web site, I give this column a 3. I would give it a 1 if I had bought the guitar out of the box and there weren't customer service numbers, but since I didn't I give them the benefit of the doubt. They really need service numbers on their site; even the ridiculously huge Marshall corporation has service numbers for every country on their site.

Again, I have been playing for 6 years, but only playing classical for 4 months. I believe from my experience that it is the best in it's price range. Hohner seems to be a very quality oriented company who is very overlooked. At least in this guitar, they did a quality job like I have never seen in guitars costing three times this much. Great guitar for a great price.
I will update this column once I get more experience on the classical and have time to play more models and see how this guitar handles the test of time.