Lucida Artista 550E

I bought this guitar in 2000 with my first paycheck. It's a plywood classical guitar made in Taiwan: cedar and mohogany guitar; thick gloss finish; decent faux-gold-plated tuners; a cutaway; a bolt-on mohagany neck with rose-wood fingerboard; and a pickup.

The pickup's got a volume/bass/mid/treble/pressence control panel. While I'm uncertain about what model the pickups are, they work well enough.

The only downside to this guitar is the laminate top.

This guitar is a generalist. It's balanced, sweet sound is better than many classical guitars I've played 5x it's price. It's not loud, but it has a warm presence suitable for intimate playing. It's no Ramirez A1, but it'll work as a knock-about guitar.

Plugged in, it sounds much more different. It's pickups produce a surprisingly pure sound akin to a purely electric guitar. It's not a Fender, but it can produce both sludgy power chords and clean notes depending on the effects. The downside is that it loses some depth plugged in, and it's sustain is nowhere near a solid bodies. I use a pignose 7-100.

Like: warm, balanced, rich sound; plays decently plugged in or unplugged.
Dislike: lack of sustain, not loud enough unplugged, feedback-prone

The action is good, neither too high nor low. No buzzing, and usually no hurt fingers. The top was bookmatched correctly, and the bridge was fine.

I can only see one flaw: there's binding along the edge of the fretboard. This suggests that it's unfinished or crudely joined to the neck. However, it hasn't bugged me yet.

This guitar is trustworthy. Everything is so simple, that it's unlikely to break. There are no strap-buttons to fall off, the jack and pickups are solidly installed, and the finish is thick.

It's a plywood guitar. I've taken it to the beach, to college, to the mountains, desert, etc, and I've had no problem. I've dropped it on asphalt, down the stairs, and sat on it twice, but it still plays well.

Never needed customer support. No warranty either.

I've been playing for five years now. While I don't own much gear, I've played on many guitars (Martins, Taylors, Larrivee, 1920 Washburn, La Patrie, Rodriquez, Fender Strats, etc). Those guitars are better than this, but also about 1000%-2000% more in price.

But this guitar served me loyally under abusive conditions. People are still impressed by it's good looks and sounds. I love that it does almost everything decently. I hate that it's sustain is somewhat weak.

If this were stolen, I'd hunt down the bastard, tie him down--check my guitar for damage--then proceed to systematically dislocate every joint in his body...and then put it back together.

**Note: Lucida's quality control is inconsistent. I got lucky. I played eight other Lucida guitars with similar specs and they all sucked (muffled, boomy, and unbalenced sound). This inconsistency prevents it from a 10.