Luna Aurora Borealis Review – Reach For The Stars With This Kids Guitar

Body And Neck:
Hardware:
Sound:
Value:

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Regardless of your age or skill level, it’s pretty easy to spot a Luna guitar – dramatic, intricate and eye-catching. They have a great range of full-size guitars and smaller travel models, but also offer a popular acoustic guitar for kids. The compact steel-string Aurora Borealis is aimed at children, while the under $150 price tag is certainly parent-friendly. Named after the Roman Goddess of the dawn, this Aurora is an excellent beginning to any young guitarist’s journey.

Body And Neck

The Aurora Borealis has a traditional non-cutaway flattop body, with a compact 3/4 scale that makes it comfortable for children to follow some beginner guitar lessons. It’s a good-looking instrument that should appeal to kids of all ages, with four attractive colors to choose from – girls will love the Pink Pearl finish, while Teal Sparkle, Black Pearl and White Sparkle finishes are also available.

As the names suggest, these finishes are peppered with glitter to give the instrument a real twinkle. On that note, the lunar theme continues with Luna’s moon phase fret-markers and moon shape around the soundhole. For the price, the materials are pretty standard – laminated basswood makes up the top, back and sides of the guitar, with a 19-fret mahogany neck and rosewood fretboard. The guitar feels sturdy enough to survive whatever a child can throw at it, although it may require a bit of a set-up from an adult or your local guitar pro to really bring out its playability.

Hardware

The Aurora Borealis isn’t swimming in hardware, but you get everything you need to start playing acoustically. There’s a set of sealed die-cast chrome tuners on the headstock, which – for the price and purpose – are fine, with good tuning stability when compared to some cheaper guitars. The rest of the components are pretty standard, and include a rosewood bridge, stock strings, and a simple gig bag to transport the guitar to and from lessons.

Sound

If you’re expecting this little acoustic to sound like a $1,000 Martin, you’ll naturally be disappointed. However the Aurora Borealis isn’t bad at all, with good clarity and a sound that rings true. It’s bright, but with enough warmth to avoid it sounding too tinny. With its smaller construction it lacks the projection of a full-size acoustic but, for something for children to learn and practice on, it more than serves its purpose.

Conclusion

Unless your child is a guitar prodigy, chances are you are purchasing this instrument for learning, practice, or as an upgrade to a steel-string guitar from nylon. And for these purposes it offers very good value. It fits small hands well, looks great with nice attention-to-detail, and feels durable enough to survive a trip to school and back!

For more info about the Luna Aurora Borealis, click here.
For more acoustic guitars for kids, click here.