Terrible acoustic guitar brands

Soupman · May 2023

@bluecat I know a couple of people who use Tanglewoods regularly. They are decent guitars for the money.

bluecat · May 2023

Yes I thought they were,without them costing an arm and a leg , I have not been disappointed at all,I love mine.

sev112 · May 2023

I’ve got a Fender f3 , made in about 1982, bought in 1985 for about £90. Must be plywood I guess, but looks very nice. Not much info on them out there and what there is isn’t very complimentary.

but it’s a lovely guitar, especially for finger picking. Love low low action, narrow neck, very easy playing.

Tannin · May 2023

Ahh, the old "designed by" trick. Plenty of Faith marketing in this country which conveniently gives the wrong impression. But nice to learn that they actually have some home-grown product.

Mellish · May 2023

I've tried Faith.

I'm with @Tannin, not for me. But if
*you* like 'em, fine.

Monkeybone · June 2023

Taken from the Faith website:

"Faith Guitars are made in Indonesia where we have a superb, family-run and experienced workshop staffed by woodworking graduates and highly trained Luthiers."

No mention of Samick, no hiding the fact they're made in Indonesia.

Dave_Mc · June 2023

Monkeybone said:

Taken from the Faith website:

"Faith Guitars are made in Indonesia where we have a superb, family-run and experienced workshop staffed by woodworking graduates and highly trained Luthiers."

No mention of Samick, no hiding the fact they're made in Indonesia.

They may advertise them differently in Australia- here they're reasonably up-front about what they are, like you said. Before the prices went sky-high (granted, so did the prices of almost everything!) they were a pretty decent option for a not-too-dear-but-still-pretty-nice all solid acoustic.

I'd be the first to admit I'm much more of an electric player so that may well be colouring my judgment adversely, but when my sister was buying an acoustic they did make most other things seem pretty expensive (apart from maybe Furch, and even there it wasn't exactly a like-for-like comparison, as the gloss Faiths were around the same price as or only a little more than the entry-level satin open-pore Furches).

Admittedly, being in Northern Ireland there's not a whole heap of choice here so there were a bunch of things we'd have loved to get to try but couldn't...

bugileman · June 2023

Fender may have made some terrible acoustics but I did own a Korean cedar top acoustic and it was actually really good....plus some of the Japanese (depending on model) acoustics from the 1970s can be good too.

I agree though that Martin Smith are absolute.crap, not even worthy of being called an instrument.

Gandalph · June 2023

Yes Martin Smith are probably about as bad as it gets. Also extremely annoying that whenever you do a search for Martin guitars on ebay these monstrosities show up in the results.

Tannin · June 2023

How about that poor chap Martin Taylor? You'd think he'd have done better to bill his gigs as "Brian Smith" or "Harry Watson" or something.

Jetfire · June 2023

Two brands I've not seen mentioned in here are
Adam Black and Hudson. I'm pretty sure Hudson was a brand only sold via Cranes (or they were funded by Cranes, I'm not sure, but definitely a link there).

I owned an Adam Black for ages and it was pretty good as things go.

dazzer22 · June 2023

Tannin said:

I don't regard Tanglewood as crap guitars, @bluecat, I just wouldn't touch one because China and forest destruction. I particularly dislike brands which try to pretend that they are not made in China/Indonesia. (E.g., Tasman, Faith, Maestro, Altimera.) At least Eastman and Cort don't try to pretend they are not what they are.

Tannin said:

I don't regard Tanglewood as crap guitars, @bluecat, I just wouldn't touch one because China and forest destruction. I particularly dislike brands which try to pretend that they are not made in China/Indonesia. (E.g., Tasman, Faith, Maestro, Altimera.) At least Eastman and Cort don't try to pretend they are not what they are.

Tannin said:

I don't regard Tanglewood as crap guitars, @bluecat, I just wouldn't touch one because China and forest destruction. I particularly dislike brands which try to pretend that they are not made in China/Indonesia. (E.g., Tasman, Faith, Maestro, Altimera.) At least Eastman and Cort don't try to pretend they are not what they are.

yer i am not a big fan of Faith Guitars that one i had was crap .

Tannin · June 2023

rTannin said:

GoFish said:

Surprised by Ashton - I've no experience but thought they were pretty much the Hobgoblin house brand. That didn't tingle my spidey-sense.

I think - and I'm only guessing so take the thought for what it's worth - that Ashton is just an Australian brand name applied to no-name cheapest-possible guitars brought in by an importer. "Ashton" here in Oz and "Ashton" in the UK could be completely different.

Here they are very cheap and very bad. You see them in shop windows as "guitar starter kits" for $150 (say about 80 quid) bundled with a flimsy soft plastic case, a cheap tuner, and a plectrum. Probably the most expensive component is the strings

Just to confirm this I see that shops are selling Ashton 12-strings for $200-250 at present. That's about £110 to £130. You absolutely cannot make a playable 12-string for that sort of money. We are talking seriously nasty crap here.

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Terrible acoustic guitar brands

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