Advice on good midpriced acoustics

[Mr. Air]

I am in the market for a new steel string acoustic and would like to get some recommendations from the lovely BKP crowd. So what brands would you recommend?

At the moment I am looking at Seagull and Norman as I know these two brands make good guitars, but I am sure there is other interesting options.

[Kiichi]

What I say is donīt look at brands much and just go into stores and try everything out. I have found so many guitars from "good brands" sounded bad and effectivly you just gotta find one you like and not care from which brand it is.

When I went acoustic shopping with my brother he ended up with a choice between a 3k Taylor I believe and a 400 Lark (some rather cheap chinese brand anyhow) if I recall the name correctly. Those two were the best sounding guitars out of the entire collection of two shops.
The Taylor of course was louder, generally better build and had more depth to the sound, but due to diminishing returns in the price difference he went for the cheap one and it just sounds good. Never heard of the brand before and the reputation is nothing bad or good really as far as I know, but that axe just was right.

[MDV]

Yamaha make some good bang for buck acoustics.

[JJretroTONEGOD]

get a LAG guitar, they are my personal favourite in the so called cheap range. The quality of them for the money is quite amazing and same goes with the quality of wood that they use, I use mine for serious studio recording over much more expensive ones, why? because it sounds better. Mine is an early model the LAG 300D and it was made in france not china, but cost less than Ģ250, an absolute bargain.

[Telerocker]

I have a LAG300 with rosewood sides/back, cedar top, cutaway, preamp. Sounds decent for the money, but a at times a bit boxy and I miss a bit sustain and zing in the sound. Nowhere near the Seagull CW with cedar top I was so stupid to sell.

Recently I could try some Ibbie's and the Artwood-series are quite good for the money.
Also some Sigma-guitars impressed me, considering the pricetag. Lot of guitar for budgetprices.

http://www.sigma-guitars.com/index.php?id=257

[Dave Sloven]

I just have one of those Greg Bennett D5 dreadnaughts made by Samick.  It was cheap - under $300 with a bag and a spare set of strings - but it has a nice bright sound, solid top, and grover tuners.  I wanted something that I could carry around and go camping with and not worry about it too much but still sound good and stay in tune.  So far it's done that.  If I planned to record with it I would have went for a more expensive model with a cutaway for high fret access and a pickup and tuner built in but I really just use it for open chord strumming and couldn't justify the additional expense.  As they say, it does the trick.

http://gregbennettguitars.com/guitars/acoustic/worthington-series/d-5/

[itamar101]

If you get anything other than a Faith guitar I will leave forums forever...
Just kidding of course :lol:

But seriously, I got one in May after trying out Martins, Breedloves, Taylors, Yamahas Takamines and Tanglewoods.
The only guitar that was even close was a second hand all-mahogany Takamine, but it wasn't very suitable for my needs.

Faith guitars have al the top specs that you'd expect. Top notch wood, great grover tuners, bone saddle, grapthech nut, ebony fretboards, beutiful aesthetics and... BIG FRETS!!!!! They are actually playable!
The fact that they are built in indonesia may put you off, but try one. They are designed by Luthier Patrick Eggle and to be quite frank I've tried about 5 Faith guitars and them Indonesian guys did a bloody good job.

NO flaws, sturdy guitars and near perfect set-up.

Most importantly, they sound excellent and play very well.
Easily better than any guitars I've tried in the price range. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've tried about 25 different acoustics by 6-7 different brands in the last few months.

My personal one is the Neptune Baby Jumbo Cutaway. Very loud, percussive and jangly but smooth.
http://www.faithguitars.com/faith-guitar-display.asp?id=45&cat=Natural%20Series
It looks incredible in person. Check out the rest of their catalogue. You'll certainly find something.
They've some incredible parlor sized guitars that are less than Ģ300 I think, simply because they are smaller bodied and satin finished. They are great.

[JJretroTONEGOD]

I have a LAG300 with rosewood sides/back, cedar top, cutaway, preamp. Sounds decent for the money, but a at times a bit boxy and I miss a bit sustain and zing in the sound. Nowhere near the Seagull CW with cedar top I was so stupid to sell.

Recently I could try some Ibbie's and the Artwood-series are quite good for the money.
Also some Sigma-guitars impressed me, considering the pricetag. Lot of guitar for budgetprices.

http://www.sigma-guitars.com/index.php?id=257

Your comments would be enough to put someone off, can you explain further what you mean by it lacks sustain and zing? I find it has very good sustain. Maybe you got a bad guitar? mine is an early 'autumn' one made in france, better made and better sound than the new chinese replacements, Cedar top, again I can't fault anything about the guitar so it surprises me that you dislike it.

[Telerocker]

I have a LAG300 with rosewood sides/back, cedar top, cutaway, preamp. Sounds decent for the money, but a at times a bit boxy and I miss a bit sustain and zing in the sound. Nowhere near the Seagull CW with cedar top I was so stupid to sell.

Recently I could try some Ibbie's and the Artwood-series are quite good for the money.
Also some Sigma-guitars impressed me, considering the pricetag. Lot of guitar for budgetprices.

http://www.sigma-guitars.com/index.php?id=257

Your comments would be enough to put someone off, can you explain further what you mean by it lacks sustain and zing? I find it has very good sustain. Maybe you got a bad guitar? mine is an early 'autumn' one made in france, better made and better sound than the new chinese replacements, Cedar top, again I can't fault anything about the guitar so it surprises me that you dislike it.

Mine is Chinese, maybe put in a box in France. Perhaps I have not the best guitar of the bunch, but I got it very cheap. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice grab and go guitar for little money. I don't dislike the guitar. I practice a lot on it. The neck plays smooth and the preamp is effective. I recorderd with it and in the bandmix it's totally ok.
In this pricerange there are imo just better competitors. The tone of this LAG-type is not that refined or detailed, solonotes don't blossom like on the Seagull I had, it has not that ringing richness and harmonics when you strum or fingerpick. I would prefer the Sigma D28-copy that I recently was able to play. I would certainly look at Seagull, Blueridge, Eastman and Faith too, but then we're talking a higher pricelevel.

[gwEm]

i tried a seagull once and it was a lovely guitar. very distinctive sound though - kind of folky. i then tried a bunch of low end Martins (sounded good - but not as good as others in the price range) and my girlfriend at the times Tanglewood.

In short they were actually all good guitars, but some were better than others and they all had a different sound characteristic. definitely makes sense to try a few.

in the end i saved my money and didn't get anything!

[Dave Sloven]

in the end i saved my money and didn't get anything!

It's worth getting a cheapish one like I have without the tuner etc (you can get electronic tuners for $20 or less for standard tuning - and even modest downtuning -  if you need one!) just for parties, barbecues, and camping out.  I'm thinking of getting a marine band harmonica for the same reason, and just teaching myself to play it.  I will probably only learn to play The Wizard or something like that, just as a party trick.  Costs around the same as a multimeter but no-one gets their multimeter out at a campfire unless they are a complete nerd :D

[Kiichi]

My campfire and festival campground, etc guitar actually is super cheap. Itīs a Harley Benton HBCG45, which costs 45 Euros new. I had no expectation whatsoever when buying it, but I was somewhat pleasently suprised. Sure it is not a good guitar by any measure, but it can be played, sounds actually half decent (especially after I popped some ebony bridge pins I had lying around in there). I would actually say for the price it is pretty great value.
For campfire strumming this is my number one choice. Enough power and sound and when beer gets spilled on it (happened more than once) itīs not bad and should it one day end up in the campfire for some reason I will shed a tear mostly for the bridge pins.^^

[Dave Sloven]

I was inspired to finally buy that Hohner Marine Band Deluxe harmonica in the key of D that I had been wanting for years (found a good price on ebay) so that I could have a crack at The Wizard.  Found a tab too.

http://www.black-sabbath.com/vb/showthread.php?22207-Harmonica-Tab

Goes in the pocket of your jacket - even less likely to end up in the campfire than the cheap guitar ;)

[JimmyMoorby]

Yamaha make some good bang for buck acoustics.

Even the mega cheap ones are more playable to me than most.  I must admit though I like how they feel seem to electric guitars.