Cordoba Hauser Master Series Classical - Engleman Spruce Top Reviews

Let me begin by saying I am not a guitarist, I am a older student who enjoys studying classical. I began studying the cello at 70 and continue with that instrument. At 74 I began classical guitar. I currently own a Cordoba C7 and a Manuel Rodriguez C3 and I thoroughly enjoy both, they sound fine but I recently began looking for that "something special" guitar.
Since I am not a trained guitarist I am not able to attest to the finer elements of the sound. I know the tone I hear is beautiful. The guitar projects very well and without effort. The strings all appear to blend with each other very well and resound crisp and clear. One thing I do know is quality when I see it and this guitar is top shelf. I carefully inspected this guitar both outside and inside with lights and mirrors and the workmanship is superb. There are no visible glue marks anywhere and everything inside is neat and very well carved. I will have my luthier check the action but everything I see indicates a very well made instrument. Considering my experience with the C7 and this Hauser would highly recommend Cordoba to anyone interested in purchasing a guitar.

I am very fortunate to own a couple of hand made classical guitars (aka expensive). I travel a great deal and did not like subjecting these instruments to the abuse travel brings.

I was looking for a very high quality hand made guitar which I would feel comfortable taking along with me on my travels. I could not be happier with the Hauser. Although it is far, far from inexpensive, the quality is well worth the price (and in my case, two month wait). It truly is a great value!

The spruce top is exceptionally fine grained and the rosewood is beautiful. The build quality is exceptional. I have examined a number of much, much more expensive hand made Spanish guitars. The build quality of this guitar exceeds all but very, very few. I have seen low serial number Cordoba Hauser guitars where the perfling did not line up at joints. But my guitar is nearly perfect in every detail, obviously things are continuing to improve.

I do have two negative comments:

1. I do not like the sound of the stock strings which are delivered on the guitar. After trying them for one week, I changed to the Pepe Romero Fluorocarbon treble hard tension string set. The difference in sound was amazing. I highly recommend this string set for the Hauser. They really bring out the nuances of the guitar - both highs and lows.

2. Initially, I had a buzz issue with the fourth (D) string, from frets 2 through 7. This improved when I changed strings, but still remained. It took a while before I could find the source of this buzzing. Turns out, it was me! I'd gotten a bit sloppy with my finger position on the frets. I was placing my finger just a bit away from the fret, which was the source of the buzz. Simply placing finger pressure between two frets resulted in the buzz on the fourth string. But slide the finger over, toward the fret being played and the buzz went away entirely. I discussed this with a couple of luthiers. Evidently, there is a very fine line with fret height. Low frets create the problem I observed. (Note - I only observed this situation on the fourth string.) Making the frets higher tend to eliminate this problem, but can create intonation problems. (At least that is what I was told.) Since some fingerings preclude placing the finger immediately adjacent to the frets, I would encourage the Hauser builders to increase the fret height ever so slightly on future builds. But it should be noted - this guitar is spot on in regards to intonation - all over the fingerboard - a benefit of the lower fret height.

I love everything about this guitar especially the neck but the tuners stick a little especially when left overnight.

A superb guitar with precisely the tone I’ve been looking for. Notes ring pure, and I mean lovely pure with minimal overtones, as advertised. I would describe the sound as a bit on the dry side, but in a good way. You can play full 6-string barre cords and hear every note, with no mush. This is not an easy feat. Perfect for baroque music and jazz chord style playing. Maybe these characteristics are less desirable on some Romantic and Latin music, but of course Segovia had no problem with them. The balance between the bass and treble strings is much better than on my other classical guitar, a Cordoba Orchestra Pro 12 (actually a fusion model with 48 mm neck). I’ve always loved the deep bass on the Orchestra Pro, but in comparison to the Hauser it sounds boomy. Sustain is amazing—you can pretend you’re Glenn Gould and hold the opening notes of the Goldberg Variations Aria seemingly forever. The tuners are rock-solid—not too easy, not too tight.

Appearance is striking with beautiful appointments. The soundboard is natural Engelmann spruce, with absolutely parallel grain, and with a silky smooth polyurethane finish. The rosette is about the prettiest of any guitar I’ve owned, with two narrow red rings adding class to the complex black and gray pattern. The back and sides are also a joy to look at, and not just for the rosewood; the olive purfling, as on the 1937 Hauser, is a wonderful and unique touch. The headstock features the same decoration. The bridge is a highly polished rosewood.

Close inspection reveals some imperfections. The inside wall of the soundhole, in the area near the neck, has a rough finish—it appears not to have been sanded and varnished. The nut has one sharp corner that could do with a bit of rounding. Finally, there is a 2 mm misalignment between the end graft (where the sides meet at the tail of the guitar) and the soundboard joint. On my other acoustic guitars, including the Orchestra Pro, the soundboard joint and end graft are perfectly on-center. Seems odd, unless the 1937 reference model also had this characteristic (I doubt it). This lends hand-made character to the guitar, but I wish it were perfect. Easily a 5-star guitar but for these defects.

Overall, a versatile, stunning instrument which can accommodate many styles.