Orangewood OW-DANA-M 6-String Acoustic Guitar - Right-Handed Mahogany Body for Beginners & Professionals | Perfect for Camping, Live Performances & Home Practice

I'm going to try to dial in an accurate representation of what this guitar is capable of, and it bit of its features. For starters, remember that they build products to a price point. If you pay more for a product, they can put more expensive materials in a product. This guitar was built to a humble price point, and Orangewood did an excellent job of giving value for that humble price. Solid wood costs more than laminates (unless they are exotic wood laminates.) Solid wood resonates better than laminates. The box of this guitar (the body) is constructed of laminates. They appear to be good laminates of good quality. For this price point, you can expect laminates (including the soundboard, the top of the guitar) Because they used a good quality laminate, the guitar has a decent sound. Is it going to sound like a $400 - $500 guitar ? No. It won't have the resonance of a solid wood top (the front of the guitar body.) However, the science of making laminates if very sophisticated, and the laminate used on this guitar, is perfectly good at sounding good (I used a laminate top guitar, when recording some songs on my first commercial CD) It will have a slightly different sound than a solid wood top guitar, but the modern laminate guitars sound good. The workmanship on the guitar that I got, is very good. Its a very well constructed guitar. The manufacturer of this guitar had a few different markets in mind: The person who wants a good travel guitar, the beginning guitar player, the player who likes smaller guitars, the player who wants a durable guitar that can be used for recreational purposed (think beach, park, transported by bicyclists, people taking busess, planes, etc.), and lastly those of us who fit into some of these categories and are economizers (some of us just get a thrill out of inexpensive things that we think are beautiful and useful. Think stainless steel finger rings as opposed to silver ones.) This guitar will serve the purposes, that I listed, quite well. I find that this size of guitar, is better for sound, generally, than smaller travel guitars. I like the 23.5" scale, better than those with 22" or 22.5". The extra length allows for more harmonic content (sharpness in sound), and for slightly larger fret spacing. The slightly larger body allows for a tad more bass content, in the sound. The combination of the slightly bigger body, comfort in fret spacing (fingering), and slightly longer string length, while maintaining a travel size, is a winner for me. I've had 22" inch scale guitars, and have enjoyed playing the heck out of them, wherevery my bicycle riding takes me. They've been great, and truly are compact size. That being said, I like the slightly larger size of the Dana. I plan to use this guitar for practicing, spontaneous entertaining of people close by (think family get togethers, parties, local park attendees, etc.) The sound hole is big enough to accomodate a souind hole pickup (Or at least the Performance Series, el cheapo, sound hole, temporary sound hole pickup, by Seymour Duncan, titled The Maverick, fit in the sound hole.) So, I can take this to an open mic, and give 'em the ol' song and dance, then take out the sound hole temporary pickup, and pedal home. Would I recommend this guitar? Well that depends on what problem you're trying to solve. If you want a fun travel size guitar, heck yes ! If you're a connoseur of tone, maybe not (go pay 3 or 4 times as much for a solid top travel guitar.) If you want more durable guitar (lamintes are generally stronger than solid tops, and can withstand a greater temperature range, without adverse effects than a solid top guitar) heck yes. Travel guitars tend to get a few bumps, and a solid top will take that better than a solid top. If you're doing primarily recording, and you want a high quality guitar sound, No. Get a bigger guitar (check out the Yamaha FS800 for a concert size guitar. These are excellent, especially for the price. ) If you're doing casual recording (which I've done several for YouTube), yes, this guitar will sound fine for that purpose. If you have a kid that wants to learn guitar, this guitar will work just fine. He/she will have a blast with it. If you're traveling: Definitely yes. If you have the space to store it, this is a good choice (not too expensive, sounds decent, appears to be durable, is a good size.) If you like the convenience of a small gutar (I particlarly like to use them when I'm writing songs, as I alternate between writing notes on music staff paper, and pickuping up the guitar and experiementing with it.) Lastly, I would suggest that you go to YouTube and listen to several (not just one) sound samples of this guitar. That will tell you a lot. Don't just listen to the one provided by the manufacturer. They could probably make a shoebox guitar sound good, with their production capability. Listen to other people, in real life situations, playing this guitar. Then make up your mind. For me, I really dig this little, inexpensive, durable, good value guitar.