Cort NTL50

(Originally written by Sacha71/translated from Audiofanzine FR)
The CORT NTL 50 is an acoustic guitar "hand crafted" in Korea. It's a 20 frets jumbo without preamp. It has a massive class-A spruce top and rosewood sides, back, fingerboard and bridge. The mahogany neck has a C profile (nut: 44 mm). The head has chrome Grover Super Rotomatic machine heads. Even the body and neck binding look great. The guitar looks sober and beautiful. Great value for money.

UTILIZATION

Very comfortable guitar. The truss rod is easy to access through the sound hole, and the strings have a very low action. With its C profile, the neck is easy to play for guitarists used to Gibson or Epiphone. Access to the upper frets is difficult because the guitar has no cutaway.

The mini jumbo body is easy to handle even for short people like me.

The guitar has an average weight.

It's well-balanced.

The guitar has no front strap pin so you'll have to attach the strap to the head which makes it more difficult to play sitting. The strap can be really annoying and start to rub against your right hand (when you play a low E chord for example).

I love the sound of this guitar, either with a pick or finger picking.

SOUNDS

The guitar is great for blues and folk and even for rock rhythm parts.

To amplify it I chose a Shadow sound hole pickup. It emphasizes its natural and rich sound character.

OVERALL OPINION

I've been using it for almost one year. Most of all I love its warm sound. I used to be a dreadnought fan. But this mini jumbo seduced me.

Indeed, this guitar ought to be made of massive wood only, or to have a massive back like the NTL20 (with the same spruce/rosewood combination). The frets manufacturing is very good. It's a real pleasure to play this guitar.