Out of the box this cellow was unpleasant sounding. Took it to a luthier, he did the following:

1- Shaved the knot

2- Adjusted sound post

3- Moved the tail piece 1″ down and removed 3 fine tuners (C, G, and D)

4- Replaced the strings with Helicores

The results were amazing. It sounds good now. It is mellow with a hint of spark. It cost about 0 extra and it was all worth it. The final cost was around 0 which is a good price considering the nice bow, stand, and the extra hard case.

I’ve only had it a day, but played it for about 40 minutes after spending about 10 minutes on setup and tuning. Overall it’s a well build instrument with decent woods. It has a good tone, but the cheap strings kill the sound a little. The A and D are very shrill and tinny (yes, I rosined properly), but the G and C are acceptable. The bow is OK, mid grade – I was lucky to receive a straight bow and not have any bad luck with damage to the instrument during shipping. The soundpost was intact and there were only a few minor dings on the spruce top (it’ll accrue more over time anyway). Do not go by the Amazon photos as a guide on to what to expect. The tail piece is ebony, but not black ebony or even dyed. It is more of a rosewood look (but definitely ebony, because the grain is so tight). I’m not sure about the quality of the fine tuners, but I’m considering just getting a real Macassar ebony tail and ditching the fine tuners. If you pull and clean your pegs at delivery (didn’t but will do when my D’Addario strings arrive), you will have less issues with dropping tuning on the strings. Don’t forget that it will take a few weeks for the neck to bow forward slightly. It need to do that to alleviate the buzz on the 2 high strings. It’s a result of there being no string tension on the neck during (and probably before) shipping. That’s why many store instruments are fine from the git-go, they’ve been sitting with strings on for awhile. Pulling the strings for a peghole cleaning and string swap won’t assure enough time for the neck to straighten or backward bow again, unless you wait a few days to restring, then you asked for it.

For the price it’s a very good deal. My daughter has the 3/4 CCO-200 and it has performed very well over the last 3 months. I don’t know where you can get a beginners/midrange Cello for less. If you’re looking at one, take the chance and order a Cecelio. Just remember to properly align the bridge and be careful during the first tuning (a little pencil graphite on the notches in the nut and bridge slots help). If you have an issue with quality or damage, just ship it back. Also, not of advice – shipping is considerable unless you sign up with Prime. I’m not pitching for the deal (I don’t work for Amazon or anything), but for less than shipping on a cello, you get 2 day shipping on all Prime items for a year. I order a lot from amazon so it was an AWESOME deal and saved me over 0 shipping on the Cello. Bottom line: Great beginners cello.

The strings are all wrong. Wrong size – way too big and horrible. Toss the extra that come with the cello and buy some Helicores. The bridge needs adjusting or replacement. The fine tuners are trash and you will need to replace the tailpiece. I was so excited when I purchased this cello (a beginning adult) but then my cello teacher ate it alive and then I had to take it to a Luthier to get it to have a quality sound. If you can find a quality 0 cello – I recommend that direction instead.