Requinto guitar and strings review

I get asked a lot about my requinto guitar. It's beautiful to play and has a rich sound that belies it's appearance. And although they are meant for higher tuning, with the right strings they can work in standard tuning.

If you go into a generic music or guitar store that caters for beginners and students, you will likely see classical - or nylon string - guitars of many sizes, ranging from full size down through 7/8, 3/4, 1/2, and 1/4. While these can be good guitars to start on, especially for kids, they are almost always mass produced using cheap laminated woods.
The requinto guitar is intended to be a serious guitar, made for players. The one I review here is made by Cordoba, and is neither cheap nor high end - about $600AU when it was available (it is now discontinued). But the difference is that it uses a solid cedar wood top, and is made to a higher standard of quality than an entry level guitar.

This is not an affiliated review for Cordoba, Hannabach, Savarez, or anyone else. Just my opinion on their requinto 520 guitar, and my advice on which strings suit it best for standard tuning.

Other strings I have tried are:
D'Addario Requinto strings - excellent for requinto tuning (ADGCEA)
D'Addario Pro Arte EJ25B (Flamenco strings) - bit loose in standard tuning for my liking
La Bella - great strings, my favourites are the gold polished 500B series on a full size classical, but too loose on the requinto
Hannabach Greens (Silver-Special) - a bit loose for standard tuning
Savarez Yellow Card - good, but not quite as good as...

**Savarez Alliance Cantiga, and the Hannabach Kinder strings, which are my first 2 choices for standard tuning on a requinto guitar.

Below is the link to a review of the 520 specs:
https://www.chorder.com/acoustic-elec...

To the Cordoba site for the 3/4 size requinto (which has a 580mm scale length rather than my 520mm model):
https://www.cordobaguitars.com/guitar...

UPDATE: as of Sept 2023, there is a 580mm model for sale on reverb, if anyone is interested:

https://reverb.com/au/item/67821858-b...

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