Regal RD-40 Resonator Vintage Sunburst Round Neck

When first played, mine had a very unsettling rattle. After shaking out a couple tiny wood scraps from the cone, it played fine. It was not especially loud but had decent tone. The set up and action was surprisingly good for an inexpensive guitar. Typical thick shiny finish seen on many imports. I liked the 14 fret neck (vs 12). The 1 11/16 inch nut felt too narrow for my liking. I prefer 1 3/4 inch (or wider) necks. For that reason, I could not bind with this instrument.

I've been a GC customer for many years without issues or complaints. However, I was sadly disappointed with this guitar. I purchased the Regal RD-40 M on the GC website and it arrived yesterday. It looked really nice out of the box, but when I began to gradually tension the strings and tune it there was a loud bang and the strings went limp. I couldn't believe my eyes when I discovered the entire tail piece had cracked about 90% across the bottom of the guitar. A little more and it would have come completely off. So today I returned it to my local GC about 30 miles away for a full refund. They were very accommodating. Maybe I just got a lemon, but I expected better at the price point. The quality control folks in China missed something critical. I plan to continue researching my options on a resonator style guitar.

Fit and finish for an introductory instrument are great! After seeing some other reviews, I was pleasantly surprised by the tone.

This is good value for the money. I'm new to the guitar (just over a year) but I love the sound of traditional blues. I wanted to start learning slide. will get you started and serves as a good move instrument

Regal RD-40 resonator guitars come in two flavors, round neck and square neck. I have one of the latter. The listing here is a bit confusing, because the headline says round neck but the description says square neck. The round neck seems to go for about $200 more, so this is probably a square neck version as in the description. What is the difference? The round necks can be played like a regular guitar. Square neck versions have much higher action; there's no way you can press the string to the fretboard! These are commonly played as a laptop, laid flat, as Ben Harper like to play slide, for example. That also lends itself to using a bar type slide, which is held between fingers rather than a regular bottle style that fits on one finger.