Ortega R131SN

I have been playing folk guitar for 5 cc and I wanted to try something new, like flamenco or classical music. I bought this guitar and, I have to say, I'm really happy with my choice. I was looking for an affordable guitar, but i didn't want to sacrifice quality over price, and i think that a 250/300 ¤ budget it's really good for a beginner. Having said that, the guitar lived up to my expectation, not only, it went a little further! definitely reccomended! It has a clean and warm sound, it feels nice when playing in it. The neck feels nice. The only thing that i feel like saying is that it felt a little smaller than normal classic/flamenco guitars, but it's something that you won't notice with time!

Foreword: Part of the fault was mine: I wasn't prepared to fully keeping the guitar at the recommended humidity. If I had done so, maybe some of the issues might not have manifested, although the recommended humidity of 50-60% is unreasonable. Onwards with the review:

I got this guitar after playing for about ten years without really knowing much about guitars (I just play them, damned if I know anything about how they're made). After a few months of playing, the Finnish winter happened and I began to notice problems, namely string rattle around the 5th fret on the thick E and 11th fret of the thin E. After I contacted a luthier he recommended me to try increasing the humidity in my apartment and moisturize the guitar. I did so, by using a guitar humidifier as well as a general air humidifier in my flat. Using this, I managed to improve my apartment humidity to 40%, something that's not always easy to do in the nordics.

The problems persisted: The strings rattled and the intonation sounded a bit off. I took the guitar to the luthier for repairs. Here's the verdict, paraphrasing his words:

The guitar had a small bump on the neck around the points where I noticed the problem, at 4th and 11th frets, producing string rattle. Towards the center of the fretboard there was a decline, where in classical guitars an incline is typical. His suspicision is that Chinese guitars at the factories might not use wood that's fully dry before it's used to build a guitar, which in turn causes the guitars to get too dry in climates with less humidity (ie. the nordics). He also commented, having read the Ortega website, that they recommend the guitars to have 50%-60% humidity, something that's a bit unreasonable considering most guitar manufacturers recommend 40%-60%, and in the nordics even that can be difficult to achieve during winter, and in most cases even 30% can be a challenge - better quality guitars will survive it.

Ignoring the problems, the sound is fine and the guitar feels fine to my hands, playability is okay and there's a two-direction truss rod for dealing with the neck.

If you are going to buy this guitar, considering blowing 200¤ extra and get a better one in the first place - you'll pay this sum to a luthier anyway.

Gute Verarbeitung (bei Instrumenten in dieser Preisklasse sicher nicht die Regel) und Materialien bei sehr gutem Preis/Leistungsverhältnis machen diese Gitarre zu einem meiner bevorzugten Modelle für Schüler und ich habe zu diesem Zweck schon mehrere gekauft und war immer sehr zufrieden. Für Anfänger und Fortgeschrittene eignet sie sich sehr gut.

Das Instrument klingt schön ausgewogen, spricht gut an und lässt sich sehr gur bespielen. Die Bünde sind sauber abgefeilt, an Holz und Lack finden sich keine Fehler. Die Gitarre ist bundrein und wird mit guten Saiten besaitet ausgeliefert. Nicht zuletzt erwähnenswert ist das wirklich taugliche und stabile Gigbag, das mitgeliefert wird.