Godin Arena Pro BB CW DS QIT

My search for a nylon crossover has been a long and expensive one. After returning some and selling some (with a loss of course) guitars I opted for this Godin for a couple of reasons: it met my requirement in terms of neck width at 50.8mm. It was also listed as a dual source instrument, ie there was a blend of a piezo pickup and a condenser mic.

When I received my guitar this wasn't the case however. I emailed Godin and got confirmation that the dual source system had been replaced by LR Baggs VTC Element which is an undersaddle piezo pickup only. Not thrilled by that, but I guess Godin wouldn't have made the change if it wasn't an improvement. Too bad Thomann's website wasn't up to date, but not too big a deal.

The guitar is beautiful - very nice wood, fretwork is excellent. It smells very nice too. :)

The setup wasn't too good however, not to my tastes anyway. I know many manufacturers like to play it on the safe side, but this one needed both a truss rod tweak to straighten the neck a little as well as a little material shaved off the saddle.

Initially the g-string seemed too loud, especially plugged in, but I think the saddle adjustment took care of most of that.

The guitar does not come with a case. I bought a Gator ABS case for classical guitar that was a perfect fit. Very lightweight, too.

While you can tell that the guitar is small and doesn't sound quite as full as a full size classical guitar it does sound surprisingly full and loud for its slim body size.

I am very happy with this guitar. What surprised me the most was the soft timbre of the guitar, but loud enough for a thin body guitar. When played without amplification, the richness of the bass strings may be a bit lacking, but when the amplifier is turned on, everything is just perfect. Very comfortable fingerboard radius of 24". It should appeal to anyone who is used to playing acoustic or electric guitar. The action of the guitar strings is high, but any guitar master can easily adjust it to your preferences.
Thanks to one review, I bought the SKB 1SKB-SC30 Thin-line/Classical case for this guitar. As written in the description, the case is for thin-line and classical guitar. The Godin Arena body is 6.5 cm thick, so I put an extra soft pad under the body of the guitar so that the guitar rests on the full surface of the body. Both the neck rest and the body cavity are made precisely: there is no room for the guitar to move inside the case.