Many shoppers are not looking to buy the most inexpensive guitars. Whether because you have been playing for a while and have outgrown your starter instrument, or because you are looking for a first guitar and have a larger budget to work with, you are ready to make a slightly larger investment. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have to spend thousands of dollars.
Very inexpensive acoustic guitars often sacrifice quality for value, but there is a category of guitars that neither sacrifice quality nor set you back a terrible amount of money. For between $500 and $1,000 you can get a truly great instrument, and it is those instruments that this guide is about.
The guitars on this list are professional-grade, even if their price tags don’t reflect that fact. These are the best acoustic guitars under 1000 dollars.
- Seagull Artist Mosaic
- 5 Customer rating
- Back and sides: Solid Mahogany
- Fingerboard: Rosewood
- Top: Solid Cedar
- Price: $$$
- Seagull Maritime SWS SG
- 4.7 Customer rating
- Back and sides: Solid Mahogany
- Fingerboard: Rosewood
- Top: Solid Spruce
- Price: $
- Blueridge BR-160
- 4.3 Customer rating
- Back and sides: Indian rosewood
- Fingerboard: Rosewood
- Top: solid Sitka spruce
- Price: $$
- Taylor 210 200
- 5 Customer rating
- Back and sides: Layered Rosewood
- Fingerboard: Ebony
- Top: Sitka Spruce
- Price: $$
- Yamaha LL16
- 5 Customer rating
- Back and sides: Solid Rosewood
- Fingerboard: Ebony
- Top: Solid Engelman Spruce
- Price: $$
- Recording King RD-316
- 4.5 Customer rating
- Back and sides: Solid African Mahogany
- Fingerboard: Ebony
- Top: Spruce
- Price: $$
Top 6 Acoustic Guitars Under 1000 Dollars
Seagull Artist Mosaic
The first guitar on our list is the Seagull Artist Mosaic. Made in North America, the Mosaic features a solid cedar top with solid mahogany back and sides. Its fretboard is rosewood, as is its bridge. It also features scalloped bracing.
The Mosaic is big and warm sounding, great for strumming or fingerpicking. Its cedar top makes it considerably less bright than a spruce top might make it. The fact that it isn’t made of laminate wood, but solid wood, sweetens its tone and increases its sustain. In general, it has a great sound that its owners report loving.
The word for this guitar, and for all Seagull acoustic guitars, is value. The sound and feel of this guitar rivals much more expensive “brand name” guitars. Seagull is very popular among the value-seeking, and there is a reason for that.
Seagull Maritime SWS SG
The Seagull Maritime SWS SG is more affordable than the Mosaic, but it is not in any sense lacking in quality. It features a solid spruce top and solid mahogany back and sides, and its fretboard is made of rosewood. Its headstock is tapered, which is meant to make tuning the guitar easier.
The Maritime is a solid guitar, both literally and figuratively. Literally, because it is not made of laminate wood – a fact that adds to the overall quality of the guitar and enhances its tone. Figuratively, because it is a great sounding and great playing instrument. Owners report impressive playability and a great tone right out of the box.
This guitar is brighter sounding than the Mosaic, largely due to its spruce top. Its sound is more articulate and clearer, and it could suit certain styles of playing better (particularly if the music calls for a lot of single-note lines).
Blueridge BR-160
The Blueridge BR-160 is a great guitar. It also happens to be gorgeous. It features a solid spruce top and its back, sides, bridge, and fretboard are all made of East-Indian rosewood. It also has a host of aesthetic additions: An intricate headstock overlay, body binding, herringbone rosette and purfling, and abalone fret markers. For all of that, the guitar is still surprisingly affordable.
The BR-160 is modeled after historic guitars, down to its X-bracing. This means that its sound is quite vintage – warm, full, and a little rough around the edges. Its owners agree nearly unanimously that it is a beautiful-sounding instrument.
This guitar is a quite impressive value, costing a fraction of the price of similar guitars made by other brands. Blueridge may not be associated with fine acoustic guitars the way that some other brands are, but maybe they ought to be.
Taylor 210
Taylor is a huge name in acoustic guitars. They are known for quality, and many of their guitars are quite expensive. The Taylor 210, however, is very affordable. It features a solid spruce top and solid Indian rosewood back and sides. Its fretboard is made of ebony, which, while not as common as maple or rosewood, is a high-quality material.
This guitar is big and loud. Its spruce top gives it a punch, but its Indian rosewood construction mellows its tone out just a little. The ebony fretboard is, in terms of tone, somewhere between maple and rosewood – not as warm as rosewood, but not as snappy as maple. A lot of players love ebony fretboards for the way they feel and the way they sound.
Owners of the 210 agree that its sound is impressive. It is bright, clear, and loud, but not lacking in low end. Overall – and you would expect nothing else from Taylor – the 210 is a great instrument.
Yamaha LL16
The Yamaha LL16 is another great guitar. Yamaha is known for making affordable, quality guitars, and this is one is no different. It features a solid spruce top, solid rosewood back and sides, and an ebony fretboard. It is smaller than the dreadnought guitars we have been looking at – a fact that is neither good nor bad but that does affect the way the instrument sounds and feels.
This guitar sounds tighter and is less loud than a dreadnought. But its construction warms its tone considerably. Its owners say that its tone is well balanced – clear and punchy but still warm. It offers clarity in the higher registers, but some boom in the lower registers. For that reason, the LL16 is suited to almost any style of playing. It will not, however, be as punchy as the Taylor 210 or as round sounding as the Blueridge.
Overall, this is a great guitar, at its price or any. Suited to almost anything, and fit for beginners and pros alike, LL16 is a great choice.
Recording King RD-316
Recording King is not a brand that a lot of people associate with great guitars. But, as we saw with the Blueridge, that fact isn’t always instructive. The RD-316 is a great guitar, and its price is right in the middle of the pack we have been looking at.
The RD-316 features a spruce top and African mahogany back and sides. Its fretboard is ebony, which by now we are getting used to. This guitar is big, loud, and has a rich sound indicative of its spruce and mahogany construction. Not at mellow as some, but certainly not as bright as others, the RD-316 is a balanced guitar, leaning round and full as opposed to bright and thin.
Owners of the RD-316 site its impressive value as a selling point. They agree that it is the sort of guitar you would expect to pay much more for. That is most likely because if this guitar were made by some other brands you would have to.
Best Acoustic Guitars Under 1000 Comparison Chart
| Product name | Back and sides | Fingerboard | Top |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seagull Artist Mosaic | Solid Mahogany | Rosewood | Solid Cedar |
| Seagull Maritime SWS SG | Solid Mahogany | Rosewood | Solid Spruce |
| Blueridge BR-160 | Indian rosewood | Rosewood | solid Sitka spruce |
| Taylor 210 200 | Layered Rosewood | Ebony | Sitka Spruce |
| Yamaha LL16 | Solid Rosewood | Ebony | Solid Engelman Spruce |
What to Expect from a Guitar in the $500-$1,000 Price Range
There are things about the guitars on this list that set them apart from guitars that cost under $500. Here are some of those things:
Quality tone woods
The wood that an acoustic guitar is made of is the most important thing about that guitar. After all, when an instrument isn’t being amplified its sound comes entirely from its construction. Some cheaper guitars use woods that, frankly, don’t sound very good. The guitars on this list, however, are built from quality tone woods – woods that are known for their resonant qualities. These woods do really incredible things when their used to build a guitar.
Solid, not laminate, construction
Most inexpensive acoustic guitars are made of laminate woods. Laminate woods are not only much cheaper and, in general, of a lower quality than solid woods, but they affect the sound of the instrument profoundly. Laminate woods make a guitar sound thinner and much less rich. Solid woods, however, like the ones used to build the guitars on this list, add to the complexity of the guitar’s tone and benefit its overall sound immeasurably.
Good intonation
The intonation of an instrument is, roughly, the measure of how consistently it is in tune. In other words, if you play a note one way on an instrument, and then play the same note a different way on that instrument, the intonation is the measure of how close those two tones are. Guitars have imperfect intonation no matter how good they are, but better instruments tend to have better intonation. What that means is that the guitars on this list will be in tune better than inferior guitars will. And that will make you sound better.
Superior playability
Acoustic guitars are not as easy to adjust as electric guitars are. That means that it is more difficult to set them up in a way that really changes the way they feel. In some respects, the way an acoustic guitar feels is the way it feels. Of course, a good technician can do wonders, but they will only be able to work with what that guitar has to offer. Better guitars like the ones on this list just feel better than cheap guitars. They are more playable; they are physically easier to work with. A big reason for that is that they tend to have lower action (the distance between the strings and the frets), which means that physically making a sound on the instrument is easier.
Overall good tone
Finally, the best acoustic guitar under 1000 will have, overall, great tones – better than their cheaper, inferior counterparts. Inexpensive guitars often sound thin, muddy, or both. Their overtones are less complex, and their sound is, because of that, rather one-dimensional. But better guitars offer fuller, clearer tones. They are more resonant and have better sustain. They are richer, more complex. The sound a guitar makes is largely dependent on the person who is playing it – it is true – but working with a guitar that sounds really great helps a lot.
Bottom Line
This is the bottom line: Cheap guitars are sometimes good guitars. There are a lot of great values out there. But spending a little bit of extra money and moving into the $500-$1,000 range will get you a lot more instrument.
The best acoustic guitars under 1000 are truly quality instruments. They are in many ways as good as the guitars you see professionals playing. Sometimes they leave out some aesthetic frills; sometimes companies whose names you haven’t heard before make them. The guitars on this list, however, are great guitars that are not by any means extravagantly priced. If you are looking for something more budget friendly, check our article on the best acoustic guitars under $500. If you are looking for a beginner acoustic guitars, we also have an article on the best products here.
Leave a Reply