Cordoba C5-CE Nylon String Acoustic-Electric Guitar - Cedar Reviews

This guitar has a big resonating sound with the mahogany back and sides and the cedar top. I am trilled with the recorded sound that is much better than ever before. It's like having an orchestra in your musical gut with sounds that so please your ears.

This is my first classical guitar, I love everything about it from searching through the online store, to the delivery. I'm living my dream and my bucket list is being filled.
You all are awesome and going to love this relationship

We also did a blind test. I had both new guitars here as reviews were high for both. Since both are made in China and both had the same Fishman electronics they started out even. Unfortunately, the Lucero was picked up in a light weight box from a major guitar store and due to covid, couldn't really pull it out and play it. Once home and the first F chord felt 2 cracks extending down the neck from the nut on the back. Yet it played great, sounded great, stayed in tune, and had beautiful tiger wood. I played them both switching off and other than the crack which would be fixed with an exchange, it played well. The Cordoba was rock solid out of the box. The strings were a little farther apart than on the Lucera but both had the same width neck.

My good friend and excellent guitar player came over and I sat him down and gave him both guitars to play while he wore a blindfold. He immediately felt the crack but went on to play beautiful music on it, playing the full neck with never a buzz. Then he played equally beautiful music on the Cordoba.

In the end we both knew the right guitar to pick was the Cordoba. The sound texture, playability, and classic build of the guitar shined through. The Lucero was a nice guitar, but the intangibles of the Cordoba made us choose it. Sweetwater was excellent as usual, I bought a very nice Stratocaster from them a year ago and that was flawless also.

I received the first classical guitar I've owned. I chose this Córdoba because it fit my budget and I was not disappointed. My initial reaction was how nicely the guitar was with the beautiful glossy finish. The sound and playability of the guitar is exactly what I hoped for. I have no negatives for this Córdoba. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I am mine.

This is my first Córdoba and I love it. Easily making its way to be my favorite guitar I own. I haven't run into any issues except I think the preamp is a little sensitive and I get a buzz pretty easily so I try to keep it a little low on the gain.

This guitar has no flaws in its construction. None at all. It has plenty of volume and balanced tone. The Fishman pickup system captures the actual sound of the guitar accurately. And the preamp tone controls with bypass option adds variety to the sound. Overall, this guitar is a good buy if quality and practicality are what you want. This guitar will be a long-time friend. Finally, Kurt Cripe, my sales engineer, was fantastic as usual.

Doc B.

I'm amazed at how playable this guitar is and how wonderful it sounds! To top it all off, the guitar is simply beautiful. I'm excited to see how it breaks in, and to play it for family and friends.

This is my 3rd Codoba and I honestly just can't get over the quality of these amazing guitars. The tone is so rich and deep, you can almost play a bass line with the low E. It just fills so much space and the action is absolutely flawless. These guitars made me give up playing a normal acoustic basically all together. I can not streets enough if you're a beginner or a pro, this guitar will do anything you need. My original Cordoba I got 10 years ago now got messed up when I feel backwards on it in a soft case. It messed up the entire body and cracked it everywhere. I still perform with that guitar, that's the quality of these bad boys!

Sounds and feels delightful.
Has the one thing all classical guitars should have required by law, a tuner.
And it comes with very good strings.
If you are going to have just one classical guitar this should be it.
I have been playing for 40+ years and
Have dreamed of have a nylon string guitar this nice. Ken Nace was super helpful.

This guitar is way above my expectations. I always know that I am getting top quality gear when I deal with Sweetwater. Thanks for the great service.

This instrument sounds and plays fantastic!! It is surprisingly lighter in weight than I thought it would be, electronics and on board tuner work great, and the appearance is really pretty . This is my first nylon string guitar,out of the 10 I have and I LOVE it !!

Well-made. It sounds great and looks great. It's really a beautiful instrument, and reasonably priced.

Only thing it needs now, is a better guitarist to play it. But I bought it to learn, so we'll get there eventually.

Threw out the eye catching Review Title just to get your attention. I think that line comes from an old song.

Where is the 6th star?

I bought a C5CE over 10 years ago because my professional gig schedule needed a reliable, durable and attractive acoustic guitar that I could amplify. My prior acoustic was a $10,000 Pablino Bernabe Concierto - besides having to "mic" it, the Concierto was actually not a very good guitar. But I could brag about having a $10,000 guitar made in Spain. Me? buy a $265 (prices back then) Cordoba? What would people think of me? A $250 guitar could not possibly play and sound as well as ...... huh as well as ..... anything - it just can't. I even tried some other electrified acoustics costing much more - all junk - especially the electronics. It was awful, I had not choice, I was forced to buy the C5CE - but I was sure I would be returning it in short order - it had to be a piece of junk ..... it just had to be.

Since the time of my original C5CE purchase; 9,000 hours of playing time have worn-out the frets and tuners. Never seen the inside of a guitar repair shop. Time to call it quits for the old C5CE - or continue to annoy my listeners with buzzing string noise. Also, since my last C5CE purchase Cordoba's are now made in China. OMG, when I found this out, I almost walked away - but given today's market, where was I going to walk? I read the on-line reviews from my professional peers, and most everyone was in agreement that the Chinese-made Cordoba's are better than the Spanish-mad Cordoba's. For all of you inspiring beginning guitarists out there, us "old players" are who you rely upon for meaningful reviews of instruments you are considering for purchase. Here, this lesson is "more expensive is not better".

My grinding 15 hours per week gig schedule has not changed in the past 10 years, so rather than retire, simpler to replace the old Cordoba. After much deliberation and pounding Erik B. with questions and demands for bonus strings, I placed my order for a new C5CE and handed over my hard-earned cash. But I changed my mind and decided to cancel the order ........ decided to get the Cordoba C-12 CE Orchestra (fooled you huh? - you thought I was going to say something negative about Cordoba or Sweetwater ☺). Reason for my decision was that in my old age, a thinner neck is much more comfortable. The C-12 CE Orchestra is one of the rare models that provides amplification, a full-body but a thinner neck. If I don't like the C-12, everyone will sure hear about it.

The Cordoba C5CE was on sale...so I purchased it and I have to say I am very pleased with the sound and quality of the instrument...It was also a pleasure doing business with Sweetwater and especially Mr. Ed Needler, who made sure that the transaction went very smoothly...He even called me to thank me for my purchase...Now that's customer service!

When purchasing this guitar, I had never played a guitar and have just begun this journey at 57 years old. I knew nothing about what to purchase, who from or anything else. I did a lot of research for purchasing a guitar for beginners and my instructor suggested a classical guitar. After placing my order from Sweetwater, I received a call the very next day, thanking me for my purchase, reassured me if there were any questions let them know. I received my guitar in great condition, it was packed very securely and enclosed was literature about my guitar. These folks are top notch and after showing my guitar to my instructor and telling him about my experience, he immediately wanted to know more about Sweetwater. I can't tell you how grateful I am to know that my guitar came from such a great company. It is a beautiful and wonderful sounding instrument. Thanks again!!!

I got this guitar for my husband. It is a very nice looking guitar with lovely sound. It has a tuner and can be plugged in to electronic devices to play with tracks and effects. We have enjoyed it a lot. Also, the costumer service at Sweetwater is great. Yuval Fuchs contacted me right after placing my order and offered to answer any questions on the product I was getting. This was great because I had chosen the wrong type of guitar and Yuval recommended the Cordoba C5-CE, which turned our to be exactly what my husband wanted. He recommended also a more suitable bag.

EXCELLENT Classical guitar. Easier to play with the 1.96 nut width and nylon strings. I've had many broken fingers and injuries to my left hand over my 67 yrs. and this made it so much easier to play.Tone is fantastic over most other classical's I've played, and can't beat the price!!!

This guitar is sweet. Both acoustically and through an amp. Been playing this one for about 6 months now and couldn't be happier.

I'm still a beginner by all means first off. I have tried learning guitar 5-6 times since I was a young kid and always had a really rough time because I have large hands and yes huge fingers. Learning on this wide nut classical is going to be much easier !
Now I looked at a lot of guitars before I bought this one and the quality is 3 times better then most other brands I looked at in this price range. Finish on this guitar is outstanding ! I absolutely love the tone, this guitar makes me want to learn to play !

This guitar is great I've been playing guitar for a few years and love the tone of this guitar! Such a great guitar and at a good price! Sweetwater made things easy and fast with delivery as usual!

Wonderful sound for the price...and not for the price...just WOW! I messed up though by using a pic and scratching the soft surface. If you get one, use your fingers or pic nicely... :)

This is great value and fantastic tone! Love the warmth and brightness of the cedar top / mahogany back/sides combination. Highly recommended for everyone - beginner to expert!

I have owned several guitars but this is my first classical guitar. The look and finish is beautiful. The Fishman pickup works great, and the built-in tuner is quite handy. I did choose to file the saddle down for my preference in setup, and I'm very pleased with the end result.

Beautiful Finish. She really sings plugged or unplugged. My only issue would be the rough edges on the outer frets, and the action might be a little too high for my taste. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend it. The strings are top notch. And as always EXCELLENT Sweetwater customer service!

Just a great guitar for the Money .
Rich tones and a well balanced top end that projects in a room full of other guitars. Neck is perfectly shaped for my playing style. Delivered in a matter of days, and the customer service was top notch.

I was in need of a good quality classical acoustic guitar and then, I found this beauty at Sweetwater. For years, I have played other commercial brands and even some custom and hand made instruments but this guitar, is a really good one considering the affordable price. Good sound quality, the Fishman electronics is powerful and the deep base feature works really good when you want a deeper sound. The body is very comfortable to hold, the neck is thin and the buddy cut makes it really cool. The only down side is probably that it feels a little too small especially if you are a big guy! I would recommend this guitar for any intermediate or even advance guitar enthusiasts. I used in pretty much to record on my personal home studio and sometimes, for live gigs with great results. I was thinking about buying a Takamine before this one but I do not regret my decision. With the amazing help of Sweetwater staff, I am pretty happy with my choice.

this is my first time to own classical nylon string guitar. I must say this guitar is super smooth with fantastic low action; warm acoustic sound. Strings are great too. I love it! thanks Cordoba.

The sound and the action is very good

because of this guitar being a lower end model I didn't know
what to expect for quality however I was pleasently surprised
by the guitar and the tone is great. I would buy it again.

I'm writing this review on behalf of my son who is an aspiring guitar player. I have been playing guitar for 30 years and my son who is in middle school decided to pick up the guitar when the pandemic hit. He did his first year of guitar while he was in 7th grade and now that he has gone back to school full time he has again played guitar this year and is blossoming quite well within his class. As a guitar aficionado and hobbyist, I couldn't be more proud to see my son gravitate toward the instrument and have a natural ability just like me to play it and be good at it. Now, onto the review... I'm doing the review for this Cordoba C5-CESB on the Sweetwater site instead of the vendor (Melodee Music) whose store I bought the guitar for my son from because they don't have a review capability online and Cordoba asks for a review in order to get some trinkets sent out for purchasing the guitar.

My son tried several guitars ranging from Yamaha to Lucero guitars and finally landed on this Cordoba C5. Being that us guitar players are picky when it comes to buying a guitar, I wanted to ensure my son felt extremely comfortable with the guitar in terms of action, fit and finish. As he picked up the guitar and started playing, his hand felt really comfortable playing the guitar and I noticed the notes weren't buzzing or fretting out unlike the other guitars he tried. One of the tell tell signs for me that told me that was the guitar for him was that he continued to play and it was effortless for him. When I asked him if he wanted to try a different guitar, he told me that he didn't want to because that was the guitar he wanted. Now, we had been searching for a guitar for over a week and with an upcoming concert his class had to do, it was imperative that he find an instrument he could bond with.

From a more seasoned perspective, I noticed the fret edges were not sharp or harsh to touch when running your hand along the edge of the fretboard which was a big plus to me. The other guitars in the $ and below range all had subpar fret treatment and the action was very high. The action on this C5 is still somewhat high for my preference (not sure why classical guitars have such high action) and even on the Fusion Orchestra CE I purchased for myself it has a bit of high action on the higher frets. One thing I would suggest to Cordoba is to implement an adjustable bridge saddle to be able to customize the action height to the player's need instead of having to sand down the saddle which would be a permanent operation, be easily overdone and then you'd have to purchase another saddle and do the process all over again..

One of the other welcomed features I like on that guitar and mine is the built-in tuner. for any player, this makes it a breeze to tune your guitar and go. No need to fiddle around with a clip-on tuner or plugging into one if you really want to take things to that level. As far as the pickup system, I can't comment on that because my son is using the guitar unplugged exclusively. Overall, this guitar is a great instrument for a beginner or someone who is looking for a nice resonant guitar without spending a ton of money.

This guitar has great acoustics and is very easy on the fingers. It's also great looking.

when the Cordoba C5-CE it arrived straight out of the box it looks great, fit and finish very nice. the neck was soft and playable the finger board fast . i was not impressed with the action, sound or the intonation... was hard to keep in tune the action is high but the strings were OK. . I would buy a better guitar for the money , but this is my first "Cordoba" classical and i would think better of it perhaps with some adjustment and more time....giglster!