Artist

All Alvarez artist steel-string guitars have a double reinforced neck: a magnesium U-channel cradling a steel truss rod. Access to this rod is inside the sound hole instead of at the headpiece. It's a great improvement. You don't have to take a plate off the headpiece to adjust the truss rod, and the longer rod controls a larger area of the neck.

Flat-top "dreadnought" guitars like these have a stronger symmetrical X bracing pattern different from the fan bracing of classical guitars. Because of the difference in response of the treble side and the bass side, the treble side is braced more stiffly to provide balanced volume. And because the bass strings exert a lot more pull than the higher strings, the X is offset.