In the pages of the Guitar Player magazine is room for all kinds of guitars, basses, amplifiers or complements appearing on the market. Even if, depending on the industry, also could be featured banjos, mandolines, classic guitars and so on.
But the production of electric guitars and basses (with their corresponding amplifiers, pedals and so on), beats the one of any other product. That's why the tests of guitars with nylon strings aren't exactly the every day business in these pages.
Like everybody knows, the cradle of the classic guitar as we know it today, is in Spain. (For more information about the origins of the instrument, read the articles of Joan Garrobé which were published lately in the section "the old school"). And it's for that reason, that it seems logical that interesting instruments like this Elena are produced in Spain.
For the preparation of this test, we asked for the help of our coworker José Baz, a great expert for this type of instruments, who gave us his opinion about this guitar in form of a conclusion.

Who in Spain doesn't know the brand admira? One could say without err to much, that practically all the guitar players in Spain have played on some occasion a guitar of this manufacturer. This is the consequence of their huge production and the large catalogue they offer, in which we find everything, from instruments for beginners to the ones of more professional orientation.

Traditionally, the form of the guitar has always been associated with the one of a woman, that's why it's no surprise, that it was given a feminine name (to be honest, a dealer also prefers "Elena" to an aseptic SJ-25TS).

CONSTRUCTION

We could say that the Elena is a spanish (classical) guitar in it's evolved version; with that we don't want to say that it's about a new instrument or that the work of the guitar-makers is archaic (to the contrary), but with this guitar they pretended to adapt a classical instrument to the needs of the mostly non-classical musician of today.

Everybody knows the problems concerning the live sound of a classical guitar and it's precisely for that reason why many producers tend to install piezoelectric pickups in the bridge of their guitars (which might be considered nothing less than heresy for a concert guitarist or a traditional guitar maker).

For this task they referred to the firm of Fishman, whose products are of proven quality. The integrated pre-amp permits us to move in a wide range of sonorities. Besides the usual volume control, the built-in equalizer contains controls for bass, middle, treble and brilliance and also has a useful phase control and a low battery LED.

The sound possibilities of the pre-amp are very wide, allowing us to move in the whole range of sonorities and move toward more extreme equalizations; the only thing one could blame Fishman for is, that in order to change the battery, one has to remove the strings or at least loosen them a lot.

Another evolution, the Elena is presenting, is the cutaway, a typical feature of the electric guitar, which later was transferred to the acoustic guitar with the steel strings and from there to the classic ones. In this case the cutaway starts at the 12th fret and goes down to the 16th-17th, which makes the access to the higher tunes a lot easier.

The instrument is made by following the traditional rules of the classical guitar, as for the materials they used (fir for the top, rosewood for side and back), and also in it's form, dimensions and the neck.

CONCLUSION

Made of fine woods, with a nice and soft touch, this guitar is maybe the best one I played in this category of spanish guitars with integrated pickup. Playing it without amplifying, it's natural sound is sweet and full, so it's possible to give concerts in small rooms without being connected to an amplifier.

It has a good quintaje and great accessibility on the whole fingerboard, which makes the work of playing easier. The machine head is also worth a comment. It moves smoothly and holds the strings correctly, avoiding that they are going out of tune, not comparable to these hard machine heads of earlier times.

Talking about the sound, if you play with the fingertips you will get round and pure sounds, whereas if you play with the fingernails, you will get more brilliant sounds, but just as deep ones. As for it's amplified sound, it's clean and has a little bit more brilliance in it's nature even if this also depends on how you equalize it. As you can see on the picture, it has a volume control and and an four-band equalizer with which you can control perfectly the nuance and the timbre.

In conclusion, an exceptional instrument, ideal for recording and for concerts, with a limited soundrange. What more can you ask for in a wooden instrument?