Cordoba GK Studio

Firstly, a little background... I am a luthier with more than 30 years experience, so if my comments seem like I'm nitpicking, it's only because my job is assessing, building and setting up guitars. Flamenco guitar is a new style for me and it made sense to research and buy a decent intermediate-priced instrument to start with.

The guitar was supplied in Thomann's usual excellent packaging and arrived undamaged. On careful examination, I was able to identify a couple of minor finish flaws and some under-polished lacquer but certainly nothing that was cause for concern. The alignment and fit of the neck was perfect, the tuners properly fitted, frets well seated and for a guitar at this price point I would say that the finish quality was very good - well above average, in fact. Some of the fret ends were a little sharp and several would clearly benefit from some polishing as roughness could be felt where the strings passed over them. The golpeador did have an air-bubble under it, but this was easily sorted out. Anyway, I see none of this as negative and would rate the guitar extremely highly at the price paid.

Naturally, the guitar needed a few days for the strings to settle in and a few hours playing before evaluating the performance. I have to say, the factory setup was very good indeed. For my own purpose, I knew I would set the action a little lower, deepen and polish the nut slots and perfect the string-to-string balance of the transducer, as well as addressing the issues mentioned in my initial assessment. In short, everything would fall into a proper professional setup, which I guess many folks buying a guitar online would expect to have done once they had played the instrument for a few weeks.

I wore out the first set of strings and then setup the guitar as described above, on new Savarez high-tension strings. In summary, it plays superbly and, considering it is an electro-acoustic instrument, it has really respectable purely acoustic tone and volume too. The surprise has been how well the Fishman transducer / mic / preamp work though. Through a decent acoustic amplifier (Fishman Loudbox Artist) it sounds really good, with great dynamics and that dry, raspy flamenco voicing when you dig into the strings. If you are thinking of spending this kind of money on a flamenco guitar to use with an amplifier, you should really check out this model. There are several useful performances on YouTube and I would say that they fairly represent the capabilities of this instrument.

I use the GK Studio for gatherings and small performances (e.g. in bars).

Beside its very nice appearance, this guitar has a very clear, smooth and comfortable sound.

It has a low action, just like how a Flamenco Guitar should be. The low action makes it very nice to play with minimal effort, which makes it also easier to play fast!

I am very satisfied with it, and I felt very comfortable playing it from the first couple of days.

This guitar offers you a professional quality for a budget price!

Ps: I am also very satisfied with the Thomann customer service!

Thanks to my teacher I ordered this guitar a while ago. And I am in complete love with it. There are some small things which I can say would serve it to become perfect, but I think for this price it already is! Stock strings are not so good, 4th tore after < than a month of playing, but obviously, that's why they called "stock" and actually before that I was playing in metal strings so maybe I hit a bit harder than average. Golpeador could be a bit wider, several times I hit the deck with my ring finger, anyways, can change it If I want to. The main thing which confused me is I've read on the internet that strings action should be about 2-2.5 mm 1st string on 12th fret, 2.5 - 3 6th string on 12th fret. In my case, it is 3 and 4 accordingly. Notice that the anchor rod is turned to max (min strings height). Don't know what's the average but it has about 3-4 turns range on this guitar, feels like I have much more on my Fender CD-60 which is obviously cause it is a bigger acoustic guitar. Anyway, not a big deal as I think it is subject to change, I could grind off the nut a bit, but will see whether I need it with the new Luthier strings when I put them on. Please correct me if I am mistaken. Didn't yet try to record line sound, but I am sure it will be lovely as I can hear how it sounds in reality and read the other comments, seems all should be fine.
Overall, the guitar is just great, and I can recommend buying this guitar cause it seems fantastic from my perspective! I am a newbie in guitars topic but my teacher is a great flamenco guitarist and he confirmed it sounds great to him after hearing my first rec with the stock strings.

The only thing that didn't meet my expectations for a flamenco guitar based on what i researched was - the action. I hoped for the strings to be closer to the fretboard than they are.

The pickup system works well on a nice speaker setup, simple but efficient.

Everything else is just perfect for me, and my use. I love the sound, i love the narrow neck (compared to my wider necked classical guitar), the light weight, the fret finish, the durable tuning machines which is still as it was when i got it (in an especially humid environment to emphasise) absolutely no signs of wear and still smooth to turn.

Oh and I've been using it with the "Augustine Concert Black (Item code 104596)" strings - *chef's kiss.

Thank you Thomann for the provision of quality stuff and awesome service.