Special Features

Bevels

Bevels on acoustic guitar bodies have become increasingly popular. Not for no reason! It really makes holding the guitar a lot more comfortable and it adds a lot to the aesthetic appeal of the instrument.
Beside the more common arm bevel we also add a bevel on the cutaways to make it easier to reach the highest frets. 

The Adjustable Neck Connection

The unique neck connection designed by Swiss Luthier Lukas Brunner assures perfect playability at all times! It allows you to lower or raise the string action on the fly should it have changed by humidity changes or simply by the constant tension on the top over time. This makes the guitar very climate resistant and durable without ever having to change the saddle height on the bridge.
By turning the bolt on the neck heel with a 4mm Alen key the neck angle to the body changes immediately and with it the distance between the strings and the fret board. Turning clockwise will lower the strings, turning the other way will raise the strings. You can smoothly set it exactly to your preference! 
An ideal average setting is 1,8mm between the 12. fret and the high E string and 2,5mm at  the low E string.

Neck bow correction with the 2-way truss rod 

For a perfect playability the neck bow is just as important as the neck angle. Being under constant string tension, a guitar neck tends to bow forward. Very rarely a neck can also become too straight or even bend backwards and cause buzzing. This can be the case when a guitar has been sitting in a very dry environment. All Astha Guitars are equipped with a 2-way truss rod to keep that neck in perfect shape also over time. To avoid string buzzing, the neck needs to have a very slight forward bow. If the strings are pressed down in the 1st and 14th fret, there should be a gap between the  6th fret and the strings of about 0.3mm (like shown on the 1st picture). This is about the thickness of a business card.
To adjust the neck bow, the little cap needs to be taken off (second picture) and the truss rod needs to be either tightened or loosen with a 4mm Alen key. Turning clockwise will straighten the neck, turning the other way will bow the neck forward (third picture).

The Zero Fret

Unlike most acoustic guitars, the Astha Guitars have a so called “Zero fret” instead of a bone or some synthetic material for the nut. This has the advantage that the perfect string level is given by the height of the fret. On many guitar the string slots on the nuts are kept too high causing intonation problems and making it harder to play in the first frets.
Another advantage of the Zero fret is, that the open played strings sound the same as the ones pushed down on the frets. This sometime can also be an issue with other materials. 
The wooden string holder behind the Zero fret is simply a string spacer sideways.

Tuners

The elegant and comfortable Astha tuners are of durable high quality and have fine tuning ratio of 1:18. They are made in Taiwan by a company producing tuners for big North American brands. 

The Pinless Bridge

Have you ever had a hard time getting those string pins out or even lost one? You will never have to deal with those issues with a pinless bridge. The way the wholes are arranged on the bridge the string angle over the saddle remains the same on all strings. This is an advantage when it comes to pick-up string balance as we achieve an very even pressure on the saddle. Additionally the saddles slots are slightly tilted to the back so the saddle can never start to lean forward. This also helps for more even pressure on a possible under saddle pick-up.