This is our first Classical from California-based luthier Steve Porter—and it won’t be the last! Adopting some of Gil Carnal’s tried-and-true techniques for his own builds, Porter manages to carve out a voice with fierce projection married with a smooth responsiveness and note separation. Clarity is the name of the game here; this Quantum Classical has the easy, breathy richness of a much older, opened up guitar.

Porter achieves this with Balsa braces reinforced with carbon fiber along the top and a suspended cross bar and more carbon fiber rods to tie it all together. With a thin French Polish finish to keep things as resonant as possible, and a cantilevered fretboard extension (ditto for minimal top impedance), and twin soundports flanking the heel, this guitar is both loud and clear. It doesn’t hurt that the top is a creamy set of Carpathian Spruce, or that the back and sides are light-chocolate Indian Rosewood. To make sure the soundports weren’t giving the player a false sense of the guitar’s projection and dynamism, we tested this beauty with an extra set of hands to cover the soundports. The voice remained expansive and balanced. We then compared the instrument’s tone with the guitar in our lap to the voice as heard from ten feet away. Ditto on expansiveness and balance.

This 2017 Concert Classical from Steve Porter already speaks beyond its years, and there’s only one direction to go from here: up.