Santiago Cuatro

It's a cuatro but it's barely playable. For a $250 instrument it has a few shortcomings such as sloppy tuner holes in the headstock. Need to show some more care here. What makes this instrument almost unplayable is the bridge saddle and nut installation. The saddle was tilted forward with string tension and not seating in the bridge leaving the strings too high off the fingerboard. The (neck) nut slot bottom was cut on a slant so the nut was rotating away from the fingerboard towards the tuners. A luthier can fix this.I bought this instrument to learn and play, so I took the strings off and:- after removing the saddle, I found the bridge had been varnished after the saddle slot was cut and the slot was filled with varnish. The saddle wouldn't sit down in the slot. I filed it out (luckily I have some luthier tools) and am making a new saddle out of bone. (not finished yet)- I removed the nut (actually, it fell off) and found the nut slot in the neck which looks like a saw made two side to side passes, cutting two different depths, shallower next to the fingerboard which allowed the nut to rotate. I filed this slot and am in the process of making a bone nut.After all this work, I will have a playable, $270 cuatro, which I should have had when I bought it. If I like playing the quarto, I will buy a REAL instrument and use this one as a decoration/conversation piece as that's what it really is.Update: Looking at the cuatro from a distance I see the bridge is tilted so much that the bridge saddle at the high strings (G strings) is farther from the neck than the bass B strings. This is opposite from a compensated bridge leading me to think the intonation will be horrible when I have the repairs done. Sadly, I am changing my review to zero stars.

The seller should be ashamed of themselves. The musical instrument I purchased was unplayable. It was so poorly made that even my guitar repairman said it couldn't be fixed with anything less than a total rebuild. It would not play in tune and should have been checked by the shop staff before being sent out to a buyer. I was also required to pay shipping to return an obviously flawed instrument. In my opinion they still owe me $85.34. Do not purchase this instrument unless you want a repair right off the bat or don't mind not playing in tune.