Lucero LFN200SCE Review – Playability is the Name of the Game

Body And Neck:
Hardware:
Sound:
Value:

• Check Price on Amazon
• Check Price on Guitar Center
• Check Price on Musician's Friend

As part of Lucero’s Flamenco series, the LFN200SCE is an intriguing guitar that combines beauty and performance, and is tailored to modern players coming to nylon from steel. It comes in at the lower end of our chart on the best classical guitars under $500, so there’s already a lot to get excited about. Let’s see what’s on offer…

Body & Neck

Make no mistakes about it, this is a beautiful guitar from Lucero, with a couple of design points that the modern player with love. Firstly, there’s the generous single-cutaway that allows good access to the highest frets (18 in total), while the neck features a slightly slimmer profile than more conventional classical guitars. While it may not please the traditionalists, this is a blessing for players coming over to nylon from steel-string acoustics and electric guitars, and we are big fans of this accessibility.

Made in Asia (as all Lucero guitars are), the body feels top quality, with a solid select spruce top paired with Indian rosewood on the back and sides. It’s all finished in a luxurious high gloss, with an attractive rosette and equally appealing multi-ply wood binding, resulting in a guitar that feels elegant and stage-worthy.

Hardware

Aside from design, the prime reason this guitar is stage-worthy is thanks to its Fishman Clasica III Preamp. This quality preamp system features a 3-band EQ (bass, middle, and treble) with volume control and phase switch, along with a built-in digital tuner. The guitar is let down a little by its tuners – while they look attractive, with gold hardware and ebonite tuning keys, they have a habit of slipping out of tune now and again, especially when the strings are new.

It’s not too dramatic, and certainly no deal-breaker (otherwise we wouldn’t be recommending this beautiful guitar!), but it’s worth noting. Finally, the guitar has an Indian rosewood bridge and arrives strung with good-quality D’Addario ProArte strings.

Sound

Thanks to the combination of the solid spruce and rosewood in the body, the LFN200SCE is a real sweet-sounding guitar, and very well balanced. This tone is projected naturally and clearly through the Clasica III system, while the EQ allows for enough sound shaping – great for any style of music. In fact, this guitar is very versatile, and while it has flamenco at heart, it’s equally as adept at performing fingerstyle, folk or classical.

Conclusion

Stylish, playable and affordable – Lucero, consider us impressed! Aside from the slight tuning issues, this is a real solid choice and one that returns plenty of change from $500. For players who prefer a thinner neck and the speed of an electric guitar, the LFN200SCE ticks many boxes.

For more info about the Lucero LFN200SCE, click here.
For more classical guitar under $500 you might like, click here.