The Electric Flamencoguitar has arrived

Since they started to amplify acoustic instruments through piezoelectric transducers, one of the things we missed the most on the stages of the world (and especially in Spain) was an amplified Flamenco-Guitar.
The Admira Eva-E is the first instrument with these characteristics, which goes through our hands.

Admira is one of the big manufacturers of spanish guitars. Their production volume is so large, you can find them in almost all the big stores of Spain and also in ads in international magazines. Their catalogue contains guitars with reasonable prices and up to the middle/higher range, everything inside the range of industrial production.
Mainly known for their guitars of classical orientation, it's calling our attention to hold one of their guitars in hands which seems to be directed to the flamenco sector of the market. Electrified and with a narrow body. It feels prompting up to tempting.

Neck

Or let's say the head, enters like a wedge under the block of the neck, in the traditional way of the spanish guitars, forming a line from the back part of the volute to the front, between the second and third tuning peg of every side.
The head is crossed by two lines in which is placed the tuning machine (mechanical and gold plated, with heads of mother of pearl imitation) and it's covered with a layer of indian rosewood. The tuning pegs work perfectly, without any problem. The saddle of bone has a width of 50 mm of which 43,9 mm are occupied at the opening of the strings, permitting this way a medium space of 7,5 mm.
The head and the neck are made of a wood which at first sight seems like a variety of mahagony. The neck is made of two parts with a central reinforcement and it's thickness at the first fret is 23 mm reaching up to 25,3 mm at the tenth fret. The curve of the heel (in form of a keel) starts a little bit before the 11th fret. The total scale is 850 mm.
The fingerboard of ebony has been hardly polished after the cut and has got a slightly gray colour. 19 complete, low and narrow frets are mounted on it, typical for the spanish guitar: the width at the 10th fret is of 66,2 mm and reaches 67,5 mm at the 19th. The Eva-E has got a little prolongation of the fingerboard, going into the soundole, with two more frets. The one which forms number 20 can only be used on the strings of the high E meanwhile the 21st is only accessible on the string of the E, but at least on this one you can reach as high as on a Strato Vintage.

Body

The top block seems to be of cedar and we can see perfectly how the internal union was glued together by turning the little electronic-box. The top is of solid pine; the back and the sides are laminated sycamore.
The top is slightly smaller than usual and the sides have a little bit more than half of the depth of a typical spanish guitar. The bracing of the top has been made of a high quality pinewood and is very goof finished, using the design of the curve bracing at the outer sides, known as "cavero".
For the bracing of the back they used the same type of mahagony as in the fingerboard, this time without reduction, known as parallel bracing. The union of the sides and the back were made with even counter-sides, meanwhile the top was gathered with little square axles. For the inside gluing was used a gluing-pistol and they left some of the glue on the bracing and the inside of the ribs, at least in the model we tested. The guitar has got a cutaway at the small side which goes till the 17th fret and allows a reasonable access till the 19th fret.
The majority of the spanish guitars only have 18 frets, which shows clearly, that the soundhole ( with a diameter of 85mm) was moved from it's traditional position slightly to the bridge to insert this additional fret. The bridge has got a base of rosewood with decoration of ivory imitation and the saddle is made of bone. The opening of the strings is 58,4 mm and the space 10,6 mm.
The height of the fingerboard on the body is 5,7 mm which permits a very good dynamic, but the fingerboard is glued to the top which, given the different factors of expansion and contraction of the pine and the ebony, could provoke the top to crack at this gluepoint in a sudden climatic change when traveling.

Electronics

The piezoelectric chip under the bridge is a Fishman Acoustic Matrix, controlled through a Fishman Prefix pre-amp, one of these, which can be turned simply by pressing a button, giving an immediate access to the battery.
The controls of the pre-amp are: anti-feedback-filter (-15dB, de 50 Hz to 900 Hz, which, put on the minimum, stops functioning) and volume control, both in form of turn-buttons, phase-control and four sliders for bass, midrange, treble and brilliance.
The manufacturer points out, that there's also a sub-bass-control inside the pre-amp, which is already adjusted by the manufacturer. I suppose that the idea of the manufacturer is that the user doesn't manipulate it.

Sound

The guitars with sides and back of light-coloured wood have always been associated with flamenco, according to Ramirez III because of the bad luck the dark woods like the rosewood were giving (anyway, the fingerboards were of ebony).

In these music-styles have always been used guitars which were a little bit narrower than the classic ones and with lower strings, giving a higher risk of a little scratching, because they searched the velocity of playing at cost of the purity of the timbre. For the Eva-E they used sycamore (acer pseudoplatanus) for the sides and the back, instead of the traditional cypress: it's an abundant wood in Europe and, in some way, related with the american maples (probably responsible for the nearly excessive trebles of the instrument).
Unplugged, the Admira Eva-E has got a noticeable lack of basses, attributed to it's slim back, but she responds very well in the high strings. Unfortunately, we also found the same lack of bass in the amplified sound, because the majority of the piezo electrics tend to emphasize the trebles, up to produce nearly metallic sounds. A good solution would be to incorporate a microphone for mixing, preferably internal, because this way one could cover the soundhole to avoid feedbacks.
Of all the equalizations I tried out, my favorite is brilliance and middle at 50% and bass and trebles at 100% with the feedback-filter off.

Conclusion

The Eva-E is a guitar which is thought for playing on stage and, I think, in a group, because an artist, playing alone would notice the lack of the basses to much. They sacrificed part of the sound and the possibility of more volume for more comfort. If your priority is to lay a couple of accords over a complete rhythmic base (with a keyboarder or bassist who provide enough bass), you could find her interesting. Even if she has got serious competitioners on the market, some of which you should try out, the Admira Eva-E is so small that you nearly could move with her on stage as if you are not carrying a guitar at all.