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Jose Ortega JCE Rafael Classic
Guitar |
The Jose Ortega range of classic guitars has been designed by guitarist Brett Kingman and Drago Trojkovic of Central Musical Instruments of Melbourne. They are built in China in order to provide a quality instrument at a great price and the model I looked at ( the JCE Rafael) is sure proof of that!
The Rafael is a standard size Classic with a soft (rounded) cutaway with excellent specs for it's price of $1199.00. The top is solid Cedar with an ornate marquetry sound hole rosette, and Spruce five fan strut layout. The back and sides are of solid book matched Indian Rosewood, with four piece wood bindings to the top and three piece wood bindings to the back. The neck is a reinforced Mahogany unit with Ebony finger board and Ebony Bridge with a bone nut and bridge saddle.
The finish is full gloss and hardware consists of Gold Plated tuners and a Fishman Classic four pickup/preamp unit with Volume, Bass, Middle, Treble and Brilliance sliders and the guitar comes in a moulded hard case. Pretty good specifications for a twelve hundred dollar guitar!
The finger board scale is close to standard at 652 mm. and the nineteen frets are 2.2 mm. wide which I quite liked compared to the more standard 2.0 mm.Finger board nut width is 52.0 mm. and the Rafael comes strung with D'Addario strings.
The guitar was very well set up with optimum string height at the nut and an action that is almost too low. The saddle was not shaped for compensation which I found strange, but Brett Kingman of C.M.I. assures me this is one of a couple of teething problems that will be sorted out with the Chinese builders. The only other fault I could find was a slight sinking of the finish which is not at all out of the ordinary for a Rosewood guitar.
Unplugged this guitar immediately impresses with a well balanced response across and along the finger board and a G string that does not sound weak compared to the other strings!
Plugging in to my Noyce 130 Watt valve amp was just as impressive - the guitar sounds fat and full across the range with very good punch and attack response without the often attendant piezo harshness.
Overall this guitar looks feels and plays like at least a $1500.00 guitar without a case or pickup unit and I guess that's a result of having it built in China to Australian specifications and quality control. It's interesting to note that the Australian Music Association 2002 market report tells us that 68% of guitar imports by unit volume are made in China and that represents 40% of import value.
The Jose Ortega Rafael represents real value for money providing an all solid wood guitar at a price point that many others would only have perhaps a solid top with laminated back and sides and no pickup unit.
Out of five:
QUALITY
PLAYABILITY
BANG-F0R-YOUR-BUCK
OVERALL
