Ibanez GA5TCE-AM

Like many kids, remember the cheap classical guitars from school - the sort you can buy for £40 in charity shops.

I have several acoustic, electric and bass guitars - but no nylon strung guitar - so after a lot of research I settled on this one.

In short, a lovely guitar, well finished, sounds great - especially when amplified.

PROS
Quality for the price - looks very nice
Narrow body - rests easily and closer to your body, more like an electric
Sound - great amplified with good range of tone
Plays well - and the cutaway is a thoughtful addition.
Tuner - for this money, to get a built in tuner is amazing.


CONS
Narrow body - a good sound when plugged in, OK when not plugged in but you can't fight physics. The larger the body... well, the larger the sound!

Thomann regularly have the best prices - and easily the most reliable delivery service and best customer service... initially I ordered the wider bodied GA6 by mistake and Thomann quickly revised the order before dispatch and sent the right one.

I can’t understand why I waited so long to upgrade my classical guitar to this. My only classical guitar was the educational fender 100 euro model, for some reason the neck near the nut is not wide enough and it’s difficult for the fretting hand. I thought I’d get a new one and change it up a bit, thinline, cutaway and with a pickup, just to get excited a bit more about the upgrade. Once I started playing it was immediate perfection out of the box (after tuning)

The setup is absolutely perfect at least for me. And now I have decided to sell my educational fender as I’m sure I won’t be playing that any longer.

The sound (unplugged) is better than the full bodied fender classical guitar. I cannot talk much about the amplified sound as I don’t own an acoustic amp, although I did plug it into one of my electric guitar amps, at low volume it was quite nice, but I guess not ideal for a gig situation.