Nylon-string for half a grand

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by Cue Zephyr

I see. I've only ever had solid tops.


:

The C9 spruce is one of the lightest guitars I've ever held, and that adds a lot to the wonderful tone.

Here's a J.D. Souther tune I recorded with it a while back:

https://app.box.com/s/gc1bzzrqcnayfcqqn7wadteyo4cohwe7

[Cue Zephyr]

Originally Posted by sirwhale

Go for a flamenco guitar then

Either that or some crossover model that is somewhere between a classical and flamenco guitar.

Since I'm in Europe, Cordoba guitars are relatively expensive but I do have access to Höfner and Alhambra among others. Does anybody have experience with those?

[lkjjr]

Got a Cordoba Orchestra Fusion a few weeks back after a search similar to yours. Like it more the more I play it. See my post on the following thread for the details...
https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=518037

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by Cue Zephyr

Either that or some crossover model that is somewhere between a classical and flamenco guitar.

Since I'm in Europe, Cordoba guitars are relatively expensive but I do have access to Höfner and Alhambra among others. Does anybody have experience with those?

How about Aparicio? I've had AA80 and AA100 models that were pretty good. Alhambra are good guitars if you (again) get into the solid wood models.

[PeteD]

Esteve guitars are built in Valencia, so maybe you can find one easily in Europe. I have the 1GR08 which gets really good reviews consistently and consensus seems to be that Esteve is at least as good if not better than Alhambra from what I have read and played (albeit limited direct exposure to be fair...)

If you can find the Cordoba, the C9 will almost always have much better reviews than the 5 or 7....even when pitted against the C10 and 12's.

[dosland]

Originally Posted by Cue Zephyr

Either that or some crossover model that is somewhere between a classical and flamenco guitar.

Since I'm in Europe, Cordoba guitars are relatively expensive but I do have access to Höfner and Alhambra among others. Does anybody have experience with those?

With the Alhambra guitars, you get what you're willing to pay for, but like a lot of factory guitars in a certain price bracket, you definitely want to play before you buy. I found there was quite a lot of variation even between guitars of the same model (or differently-branded guitars made in the same factory) in terms of finish quality, especially. I went with the best-sounding guitar I could afford at the time, and I've been pretty happy with my 7c despite not getting to play very often now that I'm otherwise engaged most of the time. I probably wouldn't have been able to distinguish between a 7c and a 5c when I was shopping around, at least not on a blind listening test. The 5 series guitars (and their parallels from Prudencio Saez and Admira) seemed to have a lot more (very minor, cosmetic) finish issues than the 7 and up, so in the end I went with the 7, which at the time was only marginally more expensive. I got to play a few slightly-fancier spruce-topped Prudencios last time I was on that side of the planet, and I liked what I heard from those, but wasn't really on the market at that stage. It's definitely worth popping into whatever shops you have around and playing things to figure out what feels nice and what doesn't, even if you do end up ordering from one of those French online shops when you figure out exactly what you want.

[Cue Zephyr]

Originally Posted by dosland

With the Alhambra guitars, you get what you're willing to pay for, but like a lot of factory guitars in a certain price bracket, you definitely want to play before you buy. I found there was quite a lot of variation even between guitars of the same model (or differently-branded guitars made in the same factory) in terms of finish quality, especially. I went with the best-sounding guitar I could afford at the time, and I've been pretty happy with my 7c

My go-to guitar store in my country carries Alhambra guitars so I'm sure that if I'm interested in a particular model I can get them to get one in. They actually have the 7C and that's the one I'd be interested in as well. If I wanted to go Cordoba I'd have to order from Thomann. Nothing wrong with Thomann, but Thomann is too far away for me to go try some guitars.