Dave Rupert on cheap guitars:
Is the $200 Yamaha the best guitar? No, probably not. Is it a great guitar? Emphatically, yes. An impeccable piece of Japanese engineering. I’ve owned $2,000 guitars, played friends’ $4,000 guitars, and the $200 Yamaha gives them all a run for their money every time. Good entry-level acoustic guitars from Martin and Taylor exist in the $500 range and they’re great purchases you won’t regret, but it’s not until the $1500 range that you start getting the material quality bumps those guitars deserve. But once you have a $1500 guitar, you start to baby it and hide it away in the case to protect it from scratches and bumps, from air of the wrong humidity, and from snoopy kids with clumsy hands. This is not a problem with the $200 Yamaha.
I have two Yamahas, and my acoustic might have been $300 when I got it back in 1995. It’s pretty beat up and I play it all the time. More to the point, it’s always out: I’m looking at it now.
