Bart Smith
February 7, 2008

Rating: 8/10

I have been researching classical guitars under 1000.00 for about 2 months now and finally had a chance to sit down with the new Guild GAD 5N. I had been looking only at ALL solid wood construction and the 5N fit that bill and then some. Visually, the guitar is stunning with the solid Western Red Cedar top, solid Paduak back and sides and ebony fretboard. The neck is smaller than a standard classical and very easy to manipulate chords and single notes, especially if you are not blessed with long spider fingers. The factory setup was superb, I would not have altered it in any way, the action was not too high like on most classicals or not to low to cause any buzzing notes. Acoustically is where the guitar shines, mainly because of the solid wood construction and the addition of a bone nut and bone saddle. I was comparing this guitar to 2 other NS series Taylors and felt the Guild played and sounded as good if not better at one third the cost of the Taylors. I told the salesman to get an untouched 5N from his wearhouse and that I would probably buy it. While he was getting it I wanted to test out the Seymour Duncan Timberline pickup so I plugged into a nice acoustic amp. This is where I started hearing problems, the volume on the 3 lower strings was much quieter than the 3 higher strings. When the salesman returned with the "new" 5N, I gave it the same test and it also had the same balance problem between the strings. I told the salesman if it wasn't for the pickup problem I would have purchased it right then and there as acoustically it was exactly what I was looking for. If not for the pickup problem I would have rated this guitar a 10.