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Cort M Series M800 Guitar REVIEWER: Phil Para DISTRIBUTED BY: Lamberti Bros
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Cort guitars are finely crafted instruments, finished by hand and made from North American hardwoods. Their new Cort M800 guitar features a hollow body with a carved flame maple top and a mahogany neck and body.
The neck is set in, the carved top is arched, and has f-holes. The guitar I have for review is in a beautiful dark antique violin finish. The fretboard with cream binding is set off well by pearl block inlays, which have a touch of abalone shell on the corner of each block. The black headstock sports the Cort characteristic of a bite out of the corner. All in all this is a very handsome guitar.
The neck has 22 medium sized frets which are neatly tapered and set snugly into the binding. The fret leveling is very consistent. The width of the nut falls slightly short of the binding and the edges could have been rounded off but as it is well set these things do not really cause a problem.
The neck is quite wide but this has been countered by a nicely contoured depth which makes it very playable. The radius of the neck and the cutaway also allow good access to the whole fretboard which is not overglossed and therefore feels very comfortable. The action is light and low and very easy to play.
The headstock has three standard tuners a side which are well spaced for even string pull and I found that the guitar stayed in tune very well. The truss rod adjustment is placed for ease, in the headstock
The Cort M800 has dual, chrome, Mighty Mite Humbuckers and an M2 Tunamatic bridge, a three way toggle switch, a volume control and a tone control which has a coil tap.
Firstly, I played the guitar through a Tube Screamer and JMP Marshall Head and Quadbox loaded with Celestions. When I tried the bridge pickup with the coil tap in the single position, (which is up) the tone was quite clean and bright. With an even response all the way down the neck. It produced some really cool lead tones that were reminiscent of early Santana when he was using these types of humbuckers.
Still on the bridge pickup but with the coil tap down in the humbucker position there was a roll off of the highs and a boost in the midrange. This didn't interfere with the tone but rather enhanced it.
The middle position with both pickups engaged produced a very fat and even tone without losing any of the clarity of the mid range thereby making for a fantastic rhythm tone. Great jazz solos can also be played in this position.
Then finally the neck pickup sounded very warm but was still articulate. I played a variety of styles in this position and it handled them all well. I played this guitar through a range of other amps and effects and although I obviously found some variations in sound, the tonal qualities were always consistent.
As a hollow bodied guitar, played at the right levels it yields a nice creamy resonance but when cranked up the M800 will come alive and want to feedback so caution would be advised there
This guitar can translate all styles of music rather well but I would say that jazz players will particularly enjoy it's lively tonal qualities. That's not to say that blues or rock players wouldn't feel comfortable with the M800, in fact there would be many guitarists who would appreciate this guitar's specific characteristics. For example Ted Nugent chose to use big hollow bodied guitars for rock and fixed the feedback problem by blocking the f holes.
The M800 is not a wide bodied guitar in fact it is probably comparable in width to a Les Paul, it is also a reasonably light guitar with a nice balance.
The retail price of $1595 makes it a reasonably accessible instrument and you are getting a whole lot of guitar for that money. It is also worth noting that Cort instruments carry a three year warranty which should assure potential buyers of the products integrity.
The guitar's general playability is excellent and I cannot fault it. I really enjoyed it's rich and deep tonal qualities. In my opinion Cort have really come of age in the last few years, their attention to detail, the ease of playing and their overall choice of components and craftsmanship all contribute to the end product being of an extremely high standard.Out of five:
QUALITY
PLAYABILITY
BANG-F0R-YOUR-BUCK
OVERALL
