Richwood RM-150-NT Hot Club Solid O

Very poor quality but still a bit of fun!

This is like a cheap toy version of a Selmer/Maccaferri guitar. It's by far the cheapest feeling and most poorly built acoustic guitar I've ever laid my hands on.

If you buy this guitar you will need to either know how to do fret levelling/crowning and nut filing yourself or pay a luthier to do it. This guitar was completely UNPLAYABLE out of the box.

The action was way too high. Partly because the saddle was too high (it's unadjustable so needs to be filed) and the zero fret was also WAY too high. Lowering a zero fret is quite a bit more hassle than lowering the slots in a normal nut so that's something to be aware of. The neck relief was actually perfect out of the box but that's the only positive thing I can say about the setup.

The frets had really bad file marks in them. REALLY bad! Seriously, it was the worst I've seen on a new guitar EVER. It felt like playing on gravel. Bending the strings was impossible because the strings got stuck in the file marks! I'm truly shocked that this could pass quality control. In fact, this tells me that there probably isn't much QC at all.

The hardware looks cheap and the tuners are extremely poor quality. It's the stuff you can buy on ebay from China for peanuts.

Fit and finish: It looks cheap. Much cheaper than in the pictures. The finish has that ultra-cheap "too glossy" look.

The spruce top looked very bland. It didn't have any nice grain, just a couple of dark, ugly streaks. The pao ferro fingerboard was extremely dry and looked horrible out of the box (but much nicer after a bit of oil). The sapele back+sides are beautiful but must have been heavily tinted. At least I've never seen sapele with such dark color. Still, it looks nice, kinda like fake rosewood but with less interesting grain.

Ok, so lets get to the most important part: The sound. I guess it's ok if you're looking for a cheap parody of a Selmer-guitar but this is NOT a proper gypsy jazz guitar. The stock strings are supposed to be D'Addarios which are usually in the "decent but not great"-category. Unfortunately they were rusty so there's no way of knowing their true quality. They sounded awful!

Things improved considerably after I levelled+crowned the frets, filed down the zero fret to a playable height, filed down the bridge and installed Savarez Argentine strings. The sound was still nowhere near a good quality Selmer-style guitar but at least the guitar is now playable. I know I will have some fun with it at home and in the studio so I guess I'm not too disappointed.

However, I will ABSOLUTELY NOT recommend this guitar to anyone serious about gypsy jazz. This guitar is for guitarists who wants a fun little toy for different tones that you can't get from regular acoustics or archtops. Personally I regret that I didn't buy the cheaper laminate top version. It can't possibly be any worse and the laminate version was almost half the price.

Great budget friendly petite bouche guitar

I bought this guitar because I wanted to try a gypsy style guitar but didn't want to invest a lot of money for one of the high-end models. I play gypsy jazz with a guy who has a realdeal hand built model, and I'm really surprised that the Richwood easily keeps up with his guitar.

It sounds really warm but still articulate and has tons of volume and punch acoustically. The only thing I wished this guitar had was some kind of pickup system for amplification, for that reason I gave it four stars in terms of features. Otherwise I'm really pleased with everything from the tone to the build quality. I'd recommend this guitar to anyone looking for that gypsy sound without spending a ton of money.