Silent Electric Nylong String Guitar

This is a well-designed, well-engineered compact or traveler's guitar. It comes fully strung and partially tuned, with a lightly padded carry bag, nine-volt battery for the built-in pre-amplifier, and hex wrench for adjusting the truss rod.With its overall satin finish, the guitar is handsome and surprisingly lightweight. The body is a sandwich of two sections of pale, wide-grained wood, with a thin slice of fine-grained mid-brown wood between them. The fingerboard is a contrasting dark wood.Two padded wings attached to the wooden body form the outline of a full guitar body. The wings can be folded backward to minimize the guitar's dimensions, or folded forward to lock into place for playing. The wings are cunningly shaped to extend slightly toward the player's chest on the top, and towards the knee on the bottom. This third dimension helps position the fingerboard and guitar body several inches away from the player's body, a familiar and comfortable place to play.The overall instrument length is just 33 inches, from the minimal headstock to the other end of the body. With the tuners embedded in the body instead of using up space in the headstock, this is close to the least possible length for a compact guitar. Despite overall shortness, the guitar's scale length is a fraction over 25 inches, very close to the common classical scale length of 25 1/2 inches. The neck is 2 inches wide at the nut, broadening to 2 1/4 inches at the 12th fret and 2 1/2 inches at its other end - again, very close to modern standards.Neck feel is pleasant, with the frets better-dressed than usual on low-end guitars. There are slightly sharp corners on some frets, but they can't be felt in normal play. String action out of the box is comfortably low.The tuning cylinders, around which the strings are wound as they tighten, could be improved. The strings are angled quite sharply left and right of the corresponding notches in the bridge (which takes the place of the nut in a conventional guitar design), so they pop out of the bridge easily. By staggering the through-holes where the strings are first passed before tightening, the strings could be lined up with the notches for a more stable arrangement. This is a minor annoyance, not a critical flaw.The guitar's electronics include a concealed acoustic pickup sending audio to a pre-amplifier with a volume control and separate treble, mid, and bass tone controls.There is also a built-in tuning aid, showing the letter name of the note being played, a blue "sharp" indicator for notes between the letters (sharps or flats), two red indicators for pitch too low or high, and a green indicator for "on pitch". One 1/8-inch jack allows the player to listen on headphones, or send the guitar audio to an external amplifier or recording setup. A second 1/8-inch jack lets audio from an external source be mixed in with the guitar audio. Finally, a single knob controls a sound effect ranging from no effect to mild reverberation to a harsh echo.The electronics are the real weak point in the guitar's engineering. The tone controls work well, but most of the rest is weak. The tuner is not very precise, showing "in tune" over a couple of cents of string pitch difference, and the instrument can be tuned much more closely with a smart phone app or a dedicated tuner. The reverb / echo effect is artificial-sounding to my ear and almost better turned off. Worst of all, the pre-amplifier produces a steady, hissing white noise much louder than expected from modern electronics.Despite the pre-amplifier's annoying hiss, the pickup and pre-amp do an excellent job of capturing a warm and authentic string sound from the guitar. A bit of digital processing added to the guitar's audio can recreate the resonance of a real guitar body, and can also provide room sound (early reflections, reverberation, and echo) as needed to simulate a real guitar.Overall, the guitar feels comfortable to hold and is easy to play. It sounds good, except for the audible hiss from the electronics and the nearly unusable reverb / echo effect. It is attractive and seems solidly built - a fine instrument for travelers and those who need to practice silently.PROS- attractive and solidly built- lightweight, compact, and easily carried- easy action, standard-feeling fingerboard, and comfortable playing position with the folding "wings" in place- a good string sound, flawed by some poor electronicsCONS- high audible hiss in pre-amplifier electronics- inauthentic and annoying reverb / echo effect (which can be disabled)- string path from tuning cylinder to bridge notches is sharply angled and contributes to strings popping out of place on the bridge

Much nicer than I anticipated. Although the first thing I did out of the box was break a string trying to tune up, once I replaced the string and plugged in some headphones I was very pleased with what I heard and how it felt. I was even more happy when I plugged it into an amp for the first time. The sound was clean and even across the highs and lows while the controls were sensitive enough to make any adjustments I needed. The built-in tuner is a little rough but I generally use a plug-in anyway. My only question now is durability, which I'll find out in due course. But I would recommend this guitar for anyone looking for a traveling guitar without a big price tag.

It is exactly as you think: a stick with strings, tuner, small pickup, and a headphone jack.I use it to practice classical guitar and am the only one who can hear it when I do.Not a fabulous instrument, but it services precisely as needed.

I was a bit sceptic when I ordered this guitar because of the cheap price, but now I must say I'm convinced by its quality! The neck of the guitar is balanced and very well finished, the electronics are decent when connected to a good acoustic guitar amplifier (like the Yamaha THR5A). The foldable wings form a "body" that enables a familiar position for playing.The weak point of this guitar is the headphone amp. The volume knob seems to go directly to maximum volume, going into distortion while playing normally...

I am professional musician in Cruise Line Companies, this guitar is really great to travel, and also Im usinig this professionally.I really recomend this guitar is good price, portable and very good sound.the guy who create this model is a genius!

The time of delivery perfect!!!Great sound!!!!Great guitar, confortable and unique in marketI will buy another for a dear friend

Damn near perfect. No hiss quiet as a mouse. with great electronics. You can buy great tuners on ebay for 10 dollars or less the standard ones suck. Sounds as good as anything you'll ever get your hands. Electronics are astonishing for the money. The only thing I hate is the wide neck. If they made it around 1 by 7-8ths it would be perfect.

After closer examination and some hands on, here is my input:The instrument is very well built, and in my case sounds great. I stretched the strings (Per the Taylor instructions) and gave it a few days to settle in. Using a 0.2% tuner after that I found the instrument to be pretty much dead on when I played on the fret properly. The controls and sounds are easy to dial in, and the price sure is right... I did find it necessary to purchase a better case (I went to a Sonic L-22 by Traveler Guitar) and it turned out to be about a perfect fit and is quite protective. All things looked at I believe I got a pretty good deal. I do plan to replace the tuners with Strukture Open Gears (They were on sale and I couldn't see paying a higher price in light of the cost of the actual guitar)