Best Acoustic Guitars for Under $500

Best Acoustic Guitars on the Market

Best Acoustic Guitar Reviews [Updated]

1. Guild D-240E Acoustic-Electric Guitar in Natural

An Elegant and Simple Guitar

Perfect for just playing around the house or plugged in for performing. The solid spruce top delivers a clear focused tone, and the Arched laminate mahogany back provides both stability to the structure of the guitar and projects the sound better than the flat backed models.

When selecting guitars to test I was a little skeptical about Guild guitars given all the recent changes in the company.   The manufacturing of these guitars have gone through some significant changes over the last 20 years and somehow they’ve managed to keep the essence of the older models that made the brand famous.  The Westerly Collection is an attempt to keep the old models relevant.

The gig bag is surprisingly solid and provides more than enough protection for the guitar when you’re not playing it.  The construction conforms to the shape of the guitar and is well padded.

The pickups performed well on the instrument we tested.  The tone was warm, we ran it through a clean setup on a Fender Blues Jr.  One minor thing that would have been nice to have, is a tuner built into the pre-amp,  but that isn’t a deal breaker.

What won us over and the reason the Guild D-240e is our number 1 choice, it is fun to play.  The action is set up well and in a room full of guitars I find this is one that I go to often to practice on.  It is also very articulate when picking out a melody.  For a guitar under $500, you can’t go wrong with this guitar.

2. Yamaha FGX830C Solid Top Cutaway Acoustic-Electric Guitar

Great guitar, Great Price.

Yamaha continues to make great instruments. The FGX830C is no exception. Yamaha has developed scalloped bracing to improve overall sound. Note where the bracing is scooped out to make the top more responsive:

We loved the tone of this guitar, it felt a little heavier and bulkier than the Guild D-240E we reviewed.  And we had to take a few points off for not coming with a gig bag. Despite these short comings this is still our 2nd best choice giving the quality of the Yamaha builds.

It should be noted, if you have a hard requirement of having a cut away guitar we would make this our top budget guitar pick.

3. Alvarez AP66ESHB Artist Series

4. Fender CD-60SCE Acoustic-Electric Guitar-Dreadnought

Fender guitar makers have been in the business of making guitars for a long time.  The CD-60SCE is a great model for the guitarist that needs lots of features from their guitar. 

This Fender acoustic guitar has the full sound of a dreadnought with easy access to the upper frets thanks to its cutaway design.  the coll

Need to plug in?  No worries it has a Fishman low-profile pickup and pre-amp that works fine in a gig situation.  In our test we found the pickups did a good job of picking up the tone of the guitar.  The equalizer has a tuner as well as bass and treble adjustments.

This guitar is very similar to the Yamaha guitar we ranked as number 2 on our list.   For us when testing the Yamaha construction felt a little sturdier.  However, this guitar has the rolled finger board edges for comfort and the walnut fret-board is a nice touch.

In the end we felt the Yamaha guitar and slight edge in tone, for this reason we had to place this guitar as number 4 on our list.  But if you have a brand preference of Fender,  this also a good choice for an inexpensive Swiss-army knife guitar.

5. Taylor Guitars Big Baby Taylor, BBT, Walnut

I know, why is Taylor so far down the list? They make some of the finest guitars out there. There is only one catch, making a top notch guitar costs money and that usually translates into more than $500 for the consumer.

The Big Baby guitar is a good starter guitar that just fits under our limit, it is not quite full sized but it is the largest of Taylor’s small body guitars. It comes with Taylor's patented neck design so it is easy to adjust the neck angle as the guitar changes over time. This is a nice benefit to have, just ask anyone who has had to have a neck reset done.

The BBT uses top notch materials and the workmanship is flawless. There is an model that comes with electronics if you need it (BBTe) but this guitar is really meant for taking on a campy trip or playing in a hotel room. It also comes with sturdy gig bag to protect it as you travel with it.

Because there are no extra’s other than the gig bag we’ve got this guitar ranked at number 5 on the list. This  doesn’t make it a lesser guitar, it just has fewer features. If you just want a plain guitar with no frills that is made really well. This is the perfect guitar.

6. Martin LX1 Little Martin Acoustic Guitar 

As with Taylor, Martin is not a brand you would expect to find on a less than $500 guitar list.  But their build is so good we feel they deserve at least one of their guitars on this list.

The LX1 little martin is a quality instrument that is probably best suited for beginner guitarists or people that like really small guitars.  Its nod toward sustainable components also has its appeal to the younger audience.

The sound from these guitars is quite good.  I have to admit that I was a little surprised as I had very little expectation from the HPL (High Pressure Laminate) materials.   The guitar has the Sitka spruce where it counts on the guitar top, and Martin effectively uses the laminates for neck, back, and sides of the guitar.

Given the gig bag and the high quality build we had to include this guitar on our list, even if the little martin doesn’t have all the bells and whistles.

7. Eastman PCH1-OM Orchestra model

As stated in many of our other articles you know those of us here at Knight of Music love Eastman guitars.  For this reason it should be no surprise they had a model that made our under $500 list.

In playing this guitar we couldn’t really put our finger on it, but it didn’t have anything that screamed this is the guitar!

That being said, the build quality was good, the wood grains were very attractive and the tone of the guitar was on par with the other guitars that made this list.

We do like that the nut and saddle are bone.   This is usually a feature on more expensive guitars.  It also may have ranked higher if it came with a gig bag.   While this is a good guitar and meets our criteria, there other guitars on this list you may want to consider first.  But if you have a preference for the Orchestra body shape this is probably the best one on the list.

8. Ibanez AW54OPN Artwood Dreadnought - Open Pore Natural