The first thing you have to do is determine a fair budget. Do not expect too big things if you only want to spend $ 100. But be honest with yourself, are you going to be able to get everything from a 10,000 $ guitar that is in it? You will be the most content of a guitar that enhances your possibilities and radiates your personality. You will get frustrated if she limits you or if you feel that you cannot get everything out of the instrument that is in it. For example, certain classical guitars can sound great if you have a very good technique, but below average if you cannot handle strings with a hard voltage.
Then you go to the price. Does a higher price guarantee a better guitar? Yes and no.
No: in fact, everything has already been said with the previous one.
The first class is an afrader. You might think: is not that interesting for a beginner, something cheap? My experience tells me that the best way to get disillusioned in playing guitar is to take such an instrument. It plays difficult, is often badly toned, and you will soon have extra costs. For example, I once tried to play a 35 $ guitar: it just did not work and in the end the tuning mechanism was broken.
The second class can indeed already contain instruments that are acceptable and that you can enjoy for a long time. In this class you will also find guitars where at least the tops are solid, so entirely consisting of ‘real’ wood, and no plywood. Often you can already see this on the inner edge of the sound hole, where the wood is cut. A visit to https://musiety.com/best-acoustic-electric-guitar-under-300/ is important here.
The third class is a difficult class for me. It is a bit neither meat nor fish. There are certainly solid instruments in this, but you will not find a top sound. If you are at an early stage of your guitar playing, this is definitely a recommended class to see how far you are coming. If you already have a 500 $ guitar that is reasonable, and you want a real upgrade, you can usually not go here.
Here we come in the class of hand-built guitars and it becomes very difficult. At a certain moment you start paying for the name, never a good idea. The message here is: testing and searching until you find ‘your’ guitar.
Top with support beams of an acoustic guitar
Pay attention to the parts
A guitar is a complex instrument with many parts, all of which must have the right characteristics, or it will go wrong sooner or later. Some elements can be checked, others are harder to check.
Neck and key: ask for the wood species. The neck should be stable and not too heavy, to keep the balance well. The test must be hard, because otherwise it will wear quickly. Interesting answers: neck: deciduous tree cedar (especially for classical), mahogany (especially stemstring), maple (often with electric)
- Button: ebony or rosewood (the latter does not work well for classical guitars).