Played a Cort Luce parlor and a RK RO 26...but..

[gerardo1000]

After reading interesting reviews of the latest "top of the line" acoustic guitars from Cort, and of the Recording King guitars, I had a local store kindly ordering (with no commitment on my side) a Cort Luce 900 parlor and a recording King RO 26 (OM) for me to try. Both have all solid woods. The Cort has a spruce top and rosewood body, the RK has spruce top and mahogany body. Well...I was disappointed. First the finish: everybody say these new china made guitars are great value for the money, but the care of the detail is very low.
The Recording King had a very roughly made bone nut,with uneven connections to the base of the neck, and inside the body the construction was very rough.
The Cort looked more beautiful and more carefully made, but... the strings spacing was incredibly uneven, both at the nut and at the bridge: the distance between the D and G strings was much larger than the distance between the other stings.
Now the sound: both guitars sounded similar, not bad, quite resonant, quite loud, quite balanced, with good and not muddy basses, but the trebles sounded very tinny in both guitars. Both guitars, by the way, had brand new D'Addario strings. The sound of the trebles was what mainly put me off.
Really tinny. Now, it is possible that the two guitars that I tried were bad, just because of bad luck, (although they arrived from the distributors brand new and wrapped). But my suggestion to anyone considering to buy a guitar of these two brands, would be not to order it unseen. Or at least order from a big store with a reliable return policy, because evidently the quality control at the factory is low.
In comparison, the Guild GAD made in China that I have played were much more carefully made, at the same price, not to mention my Canadian made Seagull Folk spruce top and flamed maple body cutaway, which is absolutely flawless.