Joan Cashimira 87BCE review

An electro-acoustic guitar for classical players

  • £899
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The 87BCE's dark binding contrasts nicely with the clean 'white' body wood

MusicRadar Verdict

It's a shame the electrified sound doesn't match its excellent acoustic performance. Find one that does, however, and it'll be a fine flamenco-style electro.

Pros

  • +

    Good build and flamenco-tinged acoustic performance.

Cons

  • -

    Uneven string outputs when plugged in.

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Aping a 'blanco' flamenco-style construction with a solid spruce top and laminated sycamore back and sides, this guitar has a clean Spanish-style build.

The dark (rosewood) binding makes for a strong contrast to the clean 'white' body woods. Internally, it exhibits its Spanish heritage with slipper heel, mahogany back braces and spruce top bracing.

The big difference between this guitar and traditional Spanish models is the thinline depth of 75 to 68mm (2.95 to 2.68 inches), intended to help with feedback rejection on stage.

String height is fairly generous (flamenco guitars traditionally have a lower, buzzier action), and the neck is quite flat-backed in profile.

Sounds

"With the trim body comes an explosive response that's not short on low-end despite its size"

There's room to the acoustic sound here, despite the trim body. With it comes an explosive response that's not short on low-end despite its size, and with a nice upper-frequency attack.

The under-saddle pickup suffers from slightly uneven string response when amplified. The sound is quite thin and bright overall, the preamp EQ effective on the under-saddle, although the internal mic produces a feedback-prone boxy tone that is of little use at higher levels, especially since it's a mono-only output.

Dave Burrluck
Dave Burrluck

Dave Burrluck is one of the world’s most experienced guitar journalists, who started writing back in the '80s for International Musician and Recording World, co-founded The Guitar Magazine and has been the Gear Reviews Editor of Guitarist magazine for the past two decades. Along the way, Dave has been the sole author of The PRS Guitar Book and The Player's Guide to Guitar Maintenance as well as contributing to numerous other books on the electric guitar. Dave is an active gigging and recording musician and still finds time to make, repair and mod guitars, not least for Guitarist’s The Mod Squad.