YAMAHACG102 Classical Guitar, Spruce Top, Natural

The overall quality and sound of this guitar is five stars. The only negative thing I can say is how the guitar was shipped. I purchased my new guitar directly from the Amazon warehouse and the guitar was shipped in its triangular shaped manufacturer’s box which is not sufficient for shipping guitars. The box had numerous “battle scars”; (tears, rips and holes), from its lengthy journey cross country. Amazon should go the extra mile and double box guitars for shipping. Thankfully my guitar was undamaged. The CG122 series of Yamaha classical guitars have solid tops, they’re light weight, lightly braced, and look very nice. The tone is full and surprisingly loud. The matte finish is unique and is easy to maintain. The guitar’s string height is set low from the factory. This creates a problem of unwanted fret buzzes especially when the string is plucked harder. A slightly higher string height would definitely resolve the problem. All in all the Yamaha CG122 MCH is a great solid cedar top (laminate back and sides) guitar for its price.

I got this as a gift for my niece who has decided she wants to play like Xuefei Yang. I hope she can but, of course, I had to try it out first. I must say it's a much nicer guitar than I'd hoped for. It has a proper 2" nut, a nice low action, and no tuning issues. The tone is surprisingly full for a guitar in this price range. I wasn't too sure about the matte finish, but I like that also. It generally presents a nice appearance and appears well made. (I did think the factory strings were totally dead, no surprise there, so I replaced them with some D'Addario Dynacores and that made a big difference.)The bottom line is that I'd surely recommend this guitar for the student or for the casual around-the-house player. Good value for the price. All individual guitars are different, but I'm very pleased with the one I got. Here's hoping my niece will like it also. Xuefei Yang could use some competition.PSNeither Yamaha, D'Addario, nor Xuefei Yang has compensated me for this review. I wish they would, and I wish they'd contact me soon. I wouldn't mind getting a new guitar for myself. Guitarists never have enough stuff.

I was browsing Amazon, brain on idle, and drifted towards the guitar section. I'd been kicking around the idea of taking classical guitar instruction at a local community college, and figured my previous "rescue guitar" (Yamaha CGS103AII, see my review for details) probably wasn't going to be adequte for the task. Really wasn't intending to buy another instrument, and then...saw 2 returned CG122MCHs for sale in "good" condition. So, throwing caution (and money) to the wind, I ordered the cheaper of the two. Amazon responded before I could change my mind (no joke, it went from initial purchase to "Shipping Now" in about 7 hours, delivered in about 52 hours. Shoutout to the peeps at ONT6 BTW - we gotchu!) and I received a 5 foot tall box o'git Sunday morning, with no shipping damage apparent.Opened the box, aaaaand...dug through poured foam packing to find the instrument, wrapped in heavy duty polyethylene plastic with shipping tape holding it all together. Peeled the tape and plastic back to find...a pristine guitar, no physical damage noted. Gave 'er a strum, and...huh? Sounded a bit off, but gave 'er the benefit of the doubt.After getting a few more hours of sleep, got both of my classical guitars out for a head-to-head comparison. Re-strummed the CG122MCH, and noted it was way out of tune. Tuned it up, and since all the strings were out approximately equal amounts it was obvious it had been tuned at some point prior to arrival. Held tune just fine, and started running my usual checks. Intonation was dope (even the "G" string was within +-5 cents) and 2 things stood out: fretting was noticeably easier, and this thing is LOUD! Projects nicely, and tends to be a bit bass-heavy (cedar top, yo). Much greater sustain than the littler git, and not as bright. All in all, a worthy addition to the collection.Now, for the reason for 4 stars; the CG122MCH is advertised as having a "low action". Got my engineering ruler out, and measured the string height at the 12th fret. Low "E" was 4 mm off the top of the fret, and high "E" is 3.5 mm off the top of the fret. Folks, that's not a "low action", that's industry standard for a classical guitar, and is the same as the CGS103AII. Just a WAG on my part, but I suspect this instrument has light tension strings, making it easier to fret. Since I have zero idea what was done to the instrument prior to its arrival, I can't honestly blame Yamaha on this one.So...-1 star for standard string height, usual 5 for pretty much everything else. If it bugs me enough, I'll take it to a luthier for height adjustment, bone nut & saddle & a fresh set of normal tension strings. Another keeper! 🥰😁👍

Great guitar. Love it so much. Had a hole in the box from seemingly blunt force trauma but luckily no guitar damage! Something largely hand built like this you would expect some reasonable variances and you hope to get that perfect one...or at least not a defective one! Just a couple little flaws on mine but not bad enough to return and overall I really appreciate this work of art. Nice wood, design and craftsmanship. I wish I could thank the builder personally.This is my first classical guitar. I've owned a 6 and a 12 string acoustic guitar for many years but haven't played​ much the last few years. Hit a plateau and got bored. Then every time I'd pick it up again it was short lived since my fingers weren't used to the steel string abuse! I figured this would be easier on my fingers to get back into it. Also I've been really enjoying listening to finger picking style acoustic music lately. Some incredible stuff out there in this genre.This guitar has caused me to love playing again. It has opened up my creativity and had really given me some calm and peaceful joy. I'm learning more, having more fun and improving faster thanks to this beauty. And it is a beauty. Looks good, smells good and sound good. I love that it is natural with no thick urethane type clear coat. My Ibanez 6 string acoustic has a thick clear coat on top of the wood and while it is shiny and gives more durability I hate the skin sticking feel of it! I actually like the wood with minimal treatment like this Yamaha instead of that sticky clear coat. As you can tell I'm very impressed with this guitar and glad I followed my impulse to buy it. Thanks Yamaha.