This is an okay instrument for the money. It sounds good compared to other cheap dreadnoughts, I have heard a lot worse. It can get loud if you want it to and strumming suits it better. It definitely lacks that "alive" feeling you get with more expensive guitars and it feels a little bit dull, but you can't expect much for a guitar this cheap so I'm happy with it regarding the sound. The pickup seems okay but I haven't used it many times to be able to rate it. This guitar also looks quite good, the binding makes it seem more expensive than it is and the finish is flawless. Inside of the guitar's body, everything is very clean and tidy, there are no traces of glue anywhere (that's very common with cheap guitars) so even though made in china it looks built well. The biggest issue with it, which makes me really not like it after playing it for some time, is playability. It's really a huge dissapointment, especially when compared to some more expensive guitars that I have had experience with, it's so much worse. And even though it isn't right to compare it with guitars that cost 4-5 times more, I have also played many other cheap guitars that feel a lot closer to the expensive ones, have much better action out of the box and definitely play better than this cort. It is very difficult to play, the action is bad and the fretboard, while not sharp at all, feels very cheap and bad. I adjusted the truss rod but that didn't make things really better. It's just a tiring guitar and for me, playability is the most important thing on a guitar. I don't now if my example specifically is bad, but either way there are many other cheap guitars that feel a lot nicer to play.