DO NOT BUY Cordoba C5-CE

[Ted @ LA Guitar Sales]

Originally Posted by dwalton

Sad to hear, and your advice is sound - I won't buy your guitar now.

Too funny.

As for the blanket statement that all Cordoba C5-CE guitars should be avoided, that's debatable. One defective guitar doesn't doom an entire product line.

Absolutely, the C5 series are outstanding guitars. Contact your dealer or Cordoba and they will take care of it.

[smitty55]

I repaired a Cordoba C5 CE, that had the bridge "pop" off. The poly finish under the bridge had not been properly cleaned off before gluing. The ladder bracing of the cedar top seems to flex very easy, which may contribute to the bridge coming off. This seems to be a common issue with these guitars. Read the 1 star reviews on Amazon.

[Jcrooks]

I have seen this happen many times (more than 5) with Córdoba guitars. I stated this in a thread earlier but was shot down by all the fanboys. To each their own, I stay far away...

[Red_Label]

Hmmm... not a fan of the thread title. I think I'll stick to my experience of owning 16 Cordobas, from a $150 Mini II, to a $2K FCWE Reissue, and having only one or two small issues. I've owned a LOT of acoustic instruments over the years from most of the major brands and have yet to find a true consistent design flaw. Even though Cordoba's Luthier (specifically, the GK Pro) series has been my favorite (I've owned four GK Pros)… the last Cordoba that I bought was the spalted maple C5 with cutaway and electronics and I really like it! Probably as much as I liked the three Espana thin-bodied cutaways that I had, if not more.

In regards to bridges coming-up on inexpensive instruments... it happens from time to time. It's far from a catastrophe and easily enough repaired.

[redir]

Ladder bracing? I think you mean fan bracing. But yes on a well braced top for performance and responsiveness it's not uncommon to have 'waves' between the fans and as such it does affect the bridge. A bridge patch helps with this but not all classical guitars have that designed in and that's neither good or bad. whats bad is that it's also not at all uncommon for guitars under the $1000 price range have the bridges glued right to the finish.

IMHO it's an unacceptable practice but it saves time and time is money. Having been doing repairs for almost 30 years now I see this all the time and while I don't at all mind the business it's frustrating. Because it's really not that hard for some engineer to design a process in the factory environment to simply remove the finish down to wood and glue the bridge on but alas I guess the bean counters have their way.

It's good for us repair techs though

[JERZEY]

Yea... I almost bought a C5 CE for my camper. I went into the local shop to pick it up. I had tried it out a few times before hand. Not crazy impressed but I dont want an expensive guitar in a hot camper.. I tried it out for about 20 more minutes and put it on the counter. While he was writing me up the back of the guitar exploded and the guitar arched in half.... Glad I did not buy it... The owner of the shop told me that was the last Cordoba he was stocking and he had tons of trouble with them in 2018.

[cliff_the_stiff]

Originally Posted by SteveHung

Yeah, I guess that blanket statement might not have been justifiable, i'm just venting my anger. I set the thermostat in my place at 80, so I guess it was about 80 when the bridge popped off.

Embarrassingly, I called a shop yesterday to complain about the action of my guitar. I was apoplectic over 3 hundreds of an inch at the 12th fret.
I get the need to vent, and then regroup for a logical solution.
I will bring my instrument in and have someone fix it.

[Red_Label]

Originally Posted by JERZEY

Yea... I almost bought a C5 CE for my camper. I went into the local shop to pick it up. I had tried it out a few times before hand. Not crazy impressed but I dont want an expensive guitar in a hot camper.. I tried it out for about 20 more minutes and put it on the counter. While he was writing me up the back of the guitar exploded and the guitar arched in half.... Glad I did not buy it... The owner of the shop told me that was the last Cordoba he was stocking and he had tons of trouble with them in 2018.

Cordobas are braced and built very lightly. That's how they achieve their response, punch, and volume. That's why I prefer them acoustically over, say... a Yamaha... which is built to last forever, but doesn't have near the liveliness of Cordobas (I've owned plenty of Yamahas and played many more). I accept the risk that the Cordobas that I buy may not have the same longevity of a heavily-built guitar. But I have yet to have a single one "explode" or any other such thing. Not saying that it didn't happen in your case, but it's not common. My buddy runs the local Cordoba dealer and he hasn't had a single one come back due to such issues. So it's not like there is a pattern there in my opinion. I'm a fan boy because of my extensive experience with the brand for the past 8+ years. I stopped buying other brands of classical and flamenco guitars after I started buying Cordobas. I still have a couple of those other brands loitering in the man cave (Rodriguez and Breedlove) and they never get played. They're built well and sound decent enough, but don't compare in sound to the Cordobas. There are likely only one or two brands in the under-$2K price bracket that compare to Cordoba in acoustic sound. In the under $1K range I just don't think there are any.

[hesson11]

Originally Posted by Red_Label

Cordobas are braced and built very lightly. That's how they achieve their response, punch, and volume. That's why I prefer them acoustically over, say... a Yamaha... which is built to last forever, but doesn't have near the liveliness of Cordobas

I agree 100 percent!

[jimmy bookout]

How did this baby get brought back from the dead? July 2011

[Red_Label]

Originally Posted by jimmy bookout

How did this baby get brought back from the dead? July 2011

Wow... no kidding! I didn't even realize it was in the grave and had been decomposed to dust. Looks like Smitty55 revived it to express his displeasure with the model (though I can't fathom why, because today's C5 quality control could be in a different universe).

Speaking of the C5 model... I took my C5 CE spalted maple to play a yearly "high-brow" hospital benefit at the local art museum (I get called every year to do it). I also took my GK Pro negra. I played the C5 CE all night. Didn't even take the GK Pro off the stand. It's a wonderful instrument and is "better" than the C5 (as it should be considering the price difference), but wow... there was NOTHING lacking in the C5 AT ALL.

So since this thread doesn't seem to have died for good (my guilt in that is limited to responding to the negative posts), I'll at least counter the dissatisfied owners from an ancient thread and say that my C5 is OUTSTANDING and I prefer it to the FCWE and two 55FCEs that I owned. Plugged-in, there is no difference. And I find the C5 more comfortable to play because it's got a smaller neck. Same body thickness. The more expensive Spanish Cordoba thin-bodies have better electronics and slightly better acoustic sound, but in a plugged-in gigging environment... I really can't tell the difference.

I continue to be a "fan boy" and unashamedly so.

[SteveHung]

Wow, I just randomly came across this again, a thread I started back in 2011. Ever since I posted this on AGF back in 2011, I've seen other 1 star reviews come out addressing this same issue on Musiciansfriend and Amazon. I do not regret posting this back in 2011 to try to warn people about this issue with this particular model that later became more exposed. I wished reviews like this were around back in 2011, and I would not have wasted my money on the Cordoba C5-CE.

I've owned other cheap guitars like Oscar Schmidt, Yamaha, and even Walmart guitars, but none have had the bridge just pop off.

After the incidence back in 2011, I have bought a used Takamine CD132SC for around the same price as a new Cordoba C5-CE, still own it today and play it as my primary nylon string guitar, and have not had any issues with it.

[SteveHung]

Also, I read some more recent 1-star reviews of the Cordoba C5-CE that were posted this year, and there's still reports of the bridge popping off. Looks like almost a decade later Cordoba still hasn't fixed this issue in their newer models.

[dosland]

I've never had a Cordoba guitar, but in my experience (about 35 years including guitar lessons in schools and college conservatories and everywhere in between) the bridges are far more likely to come off high quality, lightly built guitars than off the solidly-built budget guitars that sound much worse and are very unpleasant to play. Good guitars have to be coddled a lot more than cheap ones, and the main culprit for a bridge popping off a solid top is almost always climate - too dry, usually. This can cause all sorts of other issues too, but I suspect that a lot of the 1-start reviews you see around the internet are down to owners not really recognizing how important it is to try to maintain a stable climate for the instrument. My Craigslist Taylor 110 has a literal sunburn across the Tusq saddle because it was stored on a stand in front of a window for years before I got it. It survived because it's built like a tank, and my Yamaha probably could have survived the same. No classical guitar could survive that sort of treatment, but the owner simply didn't know what they were doing, and I think that's very common with something like a Cordoba C5 bought off Amazon.

[3notes]

Originally Posted by TomHB

Maybe if you set it a bit lower, both you and your guitar bridges wouldn't pop off?

Laughing.... 80 is a little high for my liking too.