Seagull S6 Review

This great guitar is pressure tested and has a solid cedar top with a deep, rich wild cherry sides and back. These selected materials, combined with a precise eye for detail, makes this Seagull deliver not only a classic look but a powerful sound. The high degree of playability is obvious the moment you fret a chord and beginning players will find the guitar a great way to get started. This Seagull S6 review was a joy to research 🙂

The maple neck is a 28.4″ scale and rosewood fretboard provides smooth action all the way past the 12th fret. The bridge offers great intonation and the tuners are very precise with very little slip. This again makes the Seagull S6 great for beginners and experts alike. And if awesome playability isn’t enough the guitar looks fantastic with a semi-gloss lacquer finish. You can see your reflection in this one.

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Seagull S6 Features

Dual-function truss rods
Modified dreadnought body shape. Bass control from shape makes it great for recording
Tapered headstock with superior tuning and less stress
QIT electronics
TUSQ nut and compensated saddle provide superior harmonics

Cedar top
Silver leaf maple integrated set neck
Laminate wild cherry back and sides
Custom-polished finish

Due to the dreadnought shape the Seagull S6 doesn’t have a cutaway and offers very thin shoulders. This coupled with the smaller headstock keeps strings tight and also help keep the guitar in tune. This is also true even in alternate tunings with higher gauge strings. The bridge Tusq is manufactured by Graph Tech and this plays a big part in how well the guitar maintains its intonation over time. The Seagull S6 also boasts saddles which are rare in an affordable instrument which is yet another reason this guitar is a great buy for players of any experience level.

The neck of this beast is thick and weighty, and while this is great for tone it is also a problem for smaller hands.

Fine Acoustics Staff

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This may not be a great fit for small children or anyone who doesn’t want a really full neck. If you can get your hands around this thing you will like the feel and the sound but this will be a struggle for smaller hands and would probably not be a good buy.

The Seagull S6 is a great guitar for any price, but in this price range its a must have. If you have man hands buy this thing.

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Seagull S6 Review

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Taylor 114ce Review

The Taylor 114ce is an acoustic electric guitar with a proprietary pickup behind the saddle. The piezo-electric sensors are individually positioned and calibrated to offer a balanced organic response to the sound as it is transferred from the body to the saddle. This gives a consistent acoustic sound that maintains it’s natural quality as it utilizes the Taylor custom preamp built into the system. If this means nothing to you suffice to say that even though the guitar is using a preamp and a built in pickup it still sounds like a classic Taylor guitar though an amp or PA.

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Taylor 114ce Features

String Type: Steel
Right-handed (LH customs available via Sweetwater)
Shape: Grand Auditorium
Finish: Matte
Color: Natural
Back & Sides Wood: Layered Western Walnut
Top Wood: Solid Sitka Spruce
Binding: Black
Body Bracing: Forward Shifted Pattern
Fingerboard Material: Ebony

Number of Frets: 20
Scale Length: 25.5″
Bridge Material: Ebony
Neck Wood: Sapele
Tuning Machines: Chrome tuners
Nut Width: 1.6875″
Nut Material: NuBone
Saddle Material: Micarta
Electronics: ES2

The Grand Auditorium body shape packs a tonal punch and while the body is big the cutaways make it very manageable. One of our reviewers found the tighter waist of the GA body easier to manage than a full dreadnought but most would agree both styles are equally manageable. GA’s tend to use lighter strings than dreadnoughts but that is also purely a matter of taste.

The previously mentioned Grand Auditorium body has the depth of a dreadnought but employs a narrow waist that both increases the response in the high end but also give the guitar an overall sleeker appearance. The shape also sharpened note definition even before it hits the internal preamp. Some players find the shape easy to play than a traditional dreadnought, especially when sitting down.

The tortoise pickguard and solid spruce top look great and the laminated sapele back and sides offer additional protection against temperature swings and to a lesser degree moisture. Taylor is known for guitars that last a long time and this one is built to last as well.

This guitar will be at home on the stage, in the studio, or strumming at a campfire.

Fine Acoustics Staff

The ebony fingerboard sports 20 frets with 1.68” wide bone nut and pearloid dot inlays. The varnish finish gives the instrument a refined professional look and the guitar’s scale is 25.5”.

With impressive tonality and obvious stability, the Taylor 114ce uses hardware you will see in much more costly models. The aforementioned saddle pickup is the ES-T internal pickup system and the preamp has a built in EQ that allows the adjustment of Treble, Bass, and Volume from the guitar itself.

Check out this guitar in action in the video below.

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With the built in electronics you soundcheck will go easier and the troublesome feedback associated with acoustic guitars with add-on pickups will be a thing of the past.

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Taylor Big Baby Review

Fender FA-100 Review

In fact, here is a list of 19 Fenders for less than $400, and if you hunt around you will find around 30 more. What I’m saying is Fender knows starter guitars. This Fender FA-100 review will focus on one of the least expensive in the starter family.

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FA-100 Features

Top: Spruce
Fretboard: Rosewood
Body Material: Laminated Wood
Back Material: Agathis

Dimensions: 7x43x17 in
Hand: Ambidextrous
Neck: Agathis
Strings: 6

Coming in at around $140.00 the FA-100 is a bare bones basic acoustic. This isn’t a bad thing, but it is the startiest of the starter guitars and I had to keep that in mind while reviewing it. The thing to remember is that Fender doesn’t produce junk. Even their starter instruments are worthy of playing and this is true of the FA-100 as well.

The dreadnought style body sounds good for a basic guitar and most beginners won’t notice the difference between the way they sound on the FA-100 or a much more expensive guitar because they won’t be sounding great on anything for a while. So, while it is unavoidable that some sound quality is going to be sacrificed to get a guitar down to $140.00 it is important to remember the guitar still sounds good and to shoppers looking for this level of guitar, it will sound great. Beginners should really be focusing on playability over high end sound quality because a difficult to play guitar will scare off younger beginners and shred the fingers of older students just starting out. And don’t think the FA-100 sounds bad because it doesn’t. It just won’t hold up when compared to higher end guitars that cross the $1k mark.

This is full size guitar for those worried the price was due to a 3/4^ths sized mini. This is the whole enchilada and has the heft of a nice dreadnought. This may mean that if the guitar is for a very young child you may need to check out a mini. For a tween, teen or adult this should work fine.

The action out of the gate on the one we played was surprisingly good for this price point out of the box. I tried a second FA-100 at another store and it had great playability as well so this may not need a set up before you play.

Fine Acoustics Staff

Regardless you will probably need a new set of strings as the stock ones are of low quality from what we have seen. The low action may lead to some fret buzz but a quick set up at a local shop can get rid of that fast.

Check out this video and hear the Fender FA-100 in action.

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This affordable guitar may be one of the best starter guitars on the market with unmatched playability at this seriously low price point. You can buy better acoustic guitars but for around $140.00 this one can’t be beat.

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Fender FA-100 Review

Yamaha F335 Review

Epiphone DR 100 Review

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Taylor GS Mini Review

Taylor Big Baby Review

Yamaha F335 Review

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F335 Features

Sides: Meranti
Back: Meranti
Bridge: Rosewood
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Top: Laminated spruce

No. of frets: 20
Body Style: Dreadnought acoustic
Pickguard: tortoiseshell
Tuners: Gold die-cast
Finish: Gloss

I visited my local Guitar Center as I wanted to see it in its natural state before the inevitable chapter 11 bankruptcy that is looming ahead and I asked for a rugged acoustic guitar that wouldn’t break the bank. After trying to sell me a beautiful Martin that was way out of my price range I saw a black beauty hanging on the wall. I pulled down a Yamaha F335 and began to strum. It was terrible. So I picked up the other Yamaha F335 and began to strum. It was great!

Acoustic guitars are not cheap and if you want a bad ass guitar you are going to pay for it. If you are willing to accespt a good sounding guitar without the frills then you can sometimes get a deal. The Yamaha F335 is that deal. Yamaha is know for making nice high end guitars and horrible low end starter guitars that convince many a person to stop playing guitar. Fortunately this is neither of those. This is the rare guitar that rides the line of pretty good without dipping into cheaply made and keeps the price low. Really low to be honest, I didn’t need this guitar and I bought it anyway after I noodled on it for an hour. It was $159 for God’s sake (prices may vary but not by much).

The guitar is cheap yes but it has a big sound and a great feeling neck. The bright spruce tone rang out all over Guitar Center confusing a young man that was playing arpeggios on a Jackson V horribly in the corner. He came over to check out the Yamaha when he was finished “shredding” and he agreed that the guitar didn’t sound sub-$500 at all.

The action was bad, but I’ll cover that more below.

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If you have giant monkey hands like I do you may find that the neck is too narrow. If you have normal human hands, or if you spend a lot of time playing electric guitar, then the feel of this neck will be something you are used to. If you are beginner I would recommend trying out both this type of neck as well as a thicker one before you make a decision. Once you spend a little time on both I think it will be obvious which is a better fit.

I have huge hands but I also spend more time on electric guitars than I do acoustics so I didn’t have an issue. Mileage may vary but at this price point if you find out a couple of months down the road you don’t like it its no big loss.

I mentioned the action earlier and this guitar is going to need a little attention right out of the box. The $3,000.00 Martin plays like a dream with no set up but this little baby is going to need some. In fact with just a few tweaks this cheap guitar will play like bad ass and you will have enough left over to buy a couple more guitars. You know you want to.

After you get your new Yamaha F335 get the guitar properly setup. If you don’t know how to do this fond a pro in your area. They will do the following:

Get some new strings – You don’t know how long these strings have been on their and given the price point they are probably garbage. Get some new ones!
Lower the action – The action on this is way to high out of the box. Bring it down.
Tune it – Yeah tune the guitar. Come on it sounds horrible like that.

Ok, you now have a professionally set up acoustic guitar that sounds great. Head to the campfire and get to playing.

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Seagull S6 Review

Taylor 114ce Review

Fender FA-100 Review

Yamaha F335 Review

Epiphone DR 100 Review

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Yamaha FG830 Review

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Taylor Big Baby Review

Yamaha FG800 Review

Some guitar brands try to make a premium affordable or an affordable guitar premium quality. Both efforts usually fail because you can’t make a guitar something that it isn’t. You see some Fenders around $700 like this and a few Taylors around $200 trying this. The problem is players know the difference and really don’t care. Sell a good guitar for $200 that feels like a good $400 guitar and people will buy it. In our Yamaha FG800 review we will show that this guitar has succeeded at this.

With the FG800 you get what you pay for, and in this case, you are getting a really good guitar. Not a premium bad ass guitar, but a good one that plays well, and even advanced players could strum without getting angry.

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FG800 Features

Body: Dreadnought
String Type: Steel
Top Wood: Solid Spruce
Side Wood: Okume
Back Wood: Nato
Bracing: Scalloped
Neck Wood: Nato
Binding: Black
Radius: 74″
Frets: 20

Fingerboard Material: Rosewood
Tuning Machines: Die-cast Chrome
Scale Length: 25.5″
Bridge: Rosewood
Saddle Material: Urea
Nut: Urea
Nut: 1.692″
Body Depth: 3.937″ – 4.645″
Body Length: 19.881″
Body Width: 16.220″

The FG series in known in music stores as a workhorse that gets the job done without breaking the bank. Reliable and well-priced the FG series has been available for 50 years and looks like its going to keep going well past the 800. With a sitka spruce top and a traditional dreadnought body the instrument looks good and sounds good.

Standard die cast tuners will be no surprise and as always, they do a fine job of keeping the guitar in tune. There is better on the market but remember the price on this model. The nut and saddle are Urea and the bridge is traditional rosewood. Urea is plastic used for its resistance to erosion from string tension. This is common on guitars in this price range. As you move up in cost you will start to see bone and TUSQ bridges, but you do have to pay for it.

One thing this guitar does bring to the table is a great sound. While the guitar doesn’t look flashy it does have a great tone. The body produces a rich well-balanced sound that will upstage many other lower end or beginner guitars.

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The Yamaha brand has produced another workhorse and this guitar gets the job done. For beginners it is a perfect place to start. For more advanced players this is a great traveling guitar because it is rugged and strong. If you ding it up it won’t be too heartbreaking because you can easily buy another one.

Out of the box this guitar is much more playable than super-cheap models like the Fender FA-100 as well it should be. New strings and a set-up are usually a good idea for any new guitar but this one surprisingly didn’t need it and played very well after a quick tuning.

I hope our Yamaha FG800 Review was helpful. If you have a specific guitar you would like to know more about contact us and let us know. Even if we don’t publish a full review we would be happy to answer your questions. Click here to email us.

Seagull S6 Review

Seagull S6 Features

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Taylor 114ce Review

Taylor 114ce Features

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FA-100 Features

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F335 Features

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Yamaha FG800 Review

FG800 Features

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