Guitar Shopping in the US

weatherford

Someone asked about bringing a guitar back from the US, and someone else replied that they had gotten a Takamine and brought it back.

That brought up, for me, issues of quality, etc - and I started to write a long reply, which I realized needed to be its own thread.

Question, then - if you are going to go to the US and buy a guitar, why buy a Tak (or any of the other factory made in China/Japan, etc) guitar as versus an American luthier/hand-built instrument, or a Martin (I highly, HIGHLY recommend their factory tour), Taylor, Gibson, or other small shop instruments (Santa Cruz, etc)? It seems that the long term bang-for-the-buck is SO much better with those than the Asian made instruments. That is, if you are buying a solid wood (as versus laminate) instrument.

This is not to say those Asian made guitar sound bad - they don't necessarily - (although I've been hearing that some of the no-name ones fall apart)- but, I was in a shop in Colorado last visit (not buying for myself, just helping a friend) and we played every instrument in the shop planning to buy a medium level, probably imposted instrument. We all fell in love with a Martin HD28 - which is a pretty high end guitar. The price turned out to be VERY negotiable and brought it down to mid-range. While a little over our budget, the extra money was worth every penny - it blew away every other guitar - high, low, and medium range, in that excellent shop.

So, it just seems to me that if you are in the US and planning to get a guitar, you really should try to get the most for your money - and something like a good Martin (that is PA built, non-laminate instrument) (or Taylor - CA made, or Gibson (Bozeman, MT made), etc) will always hold its value...

Just pondering...

By they way, there are fabulous hand built instruments here in Ireland, in the North and in the UK, as well as Europe.

There are also some excellent factory built guitars to be found in Czech (I think) and other Eastern European countries. (The Stanford comes to mind - though I have never played or seen one, I have read pretty good reviews.)

Now, I should add the caveat that I know NOTHING about ELECTRIC guitars and think the acoustics with built in pick-ups usually sound only as good as the quality of the pickup. I generally mic my instruments, although I used to use a thin-lin pickup.

Thoughts, anyone?

ArthurGuinness

Anyone buying a guitar in the US should check out craigslist for the area they are visiting. Great value to be had!

unclebill98

I found that when I was there buying a Bass, anything that was American made had a much better flexibility with the price.

But again, I did try all the basses i could, but MM is where i am at and I got a great deal on them.

For a good deal in Feb and sept go to the Guitar Centres sales. There are massive savings to be had.

cullend2

i also bought a takamine in america. i bought it over a martin/taylor/gibson mainly because i found that this particular guitar had the best payoff between price, acoustic tone, and a decent preamp and pickup system. i was on a fairly rigid budget though, and the shop were willing to do a good deal. also, this was to be a gigging guitar, and i would be much less worried about a mid priced takamine getting scratched and dented than a really good martin

GWK

I have to say i have a Tak Sante Fe that i bought about 8 years ago and IMHO it stands up in terms of Quality and Build to anything i have seen or tried.