I love the look. Beautiful finish. This was to be my 3rd Alvarez. When I first unpacked it, I noticed an odd gap between the 5th string tuning machine and the head (photo). I went ahead playing and enjoying it. A little thin-sounding, as would be expected of a small body guitar, but the volume and bass were surprisingly good. But the Alvarez neck! I think they have the best neck there is. The most comfortable I ever played without spending thousands.Tuning machine investigation: Initially I assumed I could just tighten the screw when I removed the tension on the string. After doing that, I realized the screw had been stripped out of the headstock. It could be from over-tightening the screw, but may also be that the holes in the headstock for the tuning shafts are over-size, allowing string tension to deflect the tuner shaft toward the nut. This may explain why the screw was levered out of the headstock. At this point I decided I was not up to dealing with this kind of problem and to return the guitar.I love the look of the open headstock, but that also seems to be the weakness of this model. So while I can't recommend this guitar, I will heartily recommend my otherwise most recent Alvarez: the AF66CESHB, also a mahogany-topped guitar, but in the folk or orchestra body (the next larger body size).The guitar arrived a few days ago. It was just as described and outside of tuning the guitar, no other adjustments were necessary. I did my research on the acoustic guitars that were available in a certain price range ($500.00 and below) and decided on this one. I am mainly interested in Delta Blues and this guitar looked like the kind I would definitely associate with bottle slides and finger picking. The price was right, and the quality excellent. I also liked the fact that it had a solid African Mahogany front and that the sides and back were mahogany as well. One other selling point (to me anyway) is that they also used real bone instead of a synthetic. I feel that it was money well spent.The Alvarez limited warranty is good for the lifetime of the original buyer and the electronics are covered for a two-year period. Amazon did not have this guitar in stock, but the third party was a name I recognized and after I looked at the basic information on their company website along with their return policies I went ahead with the purchase. I'm glad I did. If you are interested check out the Alverez website for more detailed information, reviews are hard to find on this guitar.Love this guitar and this company. Absolutely worth the money. Great finish, very comfortable to play.Arrived in perfect condition wonderful sound easy to play have played for 40+ years would highly recommend.Great guitarI've been playing guitar for 45 years, and love my Martin D15. A friend let me play his 12-fret and I had a blast!I bought this exact guitar from my local shop, as their street price was a bit less than what's advertised on Amazon, and far less expensive than anything comparable from other manufacturers. But, you get what you pay for and pay for what you get. The first guitar I received had a huge blemish (the size of your pinky fingernail!) in the finish, and the 9th fret was so high it played the same note as the 10th on the high E string. My shop exchanged it, no questions asked. The second guitar also had several high frets as well. The dealer was very polite and apologetic, and sent the guitar to their luthier, who filed the frets (at no charge). The guitar plays better now, but the frets still aren't level, and the action had to be set unpleasantly high to eliminate several buzzy notes. The electronics are very nice, and the guitar has a very nice sound both plugged in and unplugged. Maybe you'll get lucky and receive and instrument that's set up the way it should be, but I can't recommend buying one. Save up some more money and purchase a better quality instrument.Very well constructed guitar with an amazing tone. Excellent size for a starter guitar and the action is good as well. For all aspects of learning the guitar, this Chinese made Alvarez is a great choice. Shop for a good price, there are several model numbers for the same guitar. You will need a gig bag.