FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

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Question:
Enlighten me! Umm...I am a high school student (read: little or no money) and currently play many different woodwinds and piano. Looking to expand my repertoire, (sp?) I call upon your collective knowledge to ask this question: what, in your opinion, is the best inexpensive value for an acoustic six string? Do I get steel or nylon strings? I really cannot afford anything above about $200 dollars, and I realize this doesn't give a lot of working room, but I really appreciate your feedback.

Answer:
Best solution to your problem:     1)  Lasso a friend who plays guitar, or knows guitars well. Take them with you.     2)  Go to a music store that has a good selection of used instruments, or an online site with same (Elderly Instruments in Lansing MI. is a good one).     3)  Stick soley with the USED guitars on hand - a steel-string acoustic is probably your best bet.     4)  For $200, you can do well this way.   Just yesterday I was browsing in the local Borders book shop and noticed one of the guitar magazines featured an article six good acoustic guitars for under $200, sorry I don't remember them but maybe you can find the magazine. I recall their choice as the best was one by Art & Luthier (I never heard of them) made in Canada. Here is my little tidbit.  I am a newbie guitar player myself and just recently purchased one.  As with you, I had a very limited budget and wanted to keep it around $200 or less.  After doing much reading on the internet about shopping for guitars and my past experience trying to learn to play on a cheap econo acoustic I learned something.  You have to find one that is comfortable and sounds good to you with the proper action (space between the strings and fret board) If you get one that is hard as hell to play ie. action, you will quit after about 2 weeks of frustration.  Like I said, I tried to learn a long time ago with the cheapo that my parents bought me and I remember saying to myself 'if guitars are this hard to play then I want no part of them'.  I moved on to other endeavors but still always had this burning to play.  So I tried again recently with my neighbors $2,500 Taylor. Wow, a whole new world opened up.  I'm not telling you to go out and buy that guitar, but it showed me that I could play a guitar.  I just had to find the right one in my budget. So with that mind set, I went to all the music stores in my area including pawn shops and tried all different brands of guitars new and used.  One day I stumbled into a pawn shop and saw a used Ovation acoustic/electric on the rack and tried it (I had never paid too much attention to these before) It felt good, and the action was perfect for me.  When I began to play U2's Stay, Far Away (about the only thing I know how to play other than a few chords) it blew me away.  It had a price of $195 on it.  I went home and researched the Ovation on the internet and found that people that own them love them and actually use them in gigs.  Anyway, the one I bought is actually an Applause by Ovation model number AE28 acoustic/electric and got the guy down to $165 and made him throw in a strap.  I plugged this thing into my neighbors CRATE amp and WOW, just WOW is all that I can say. The best price I found on a new one of these is $199 at www.samash.com with a list price of $425.  Everyone else seemed to be from $250 to $325 on the internet.  I did not buy a new one because the one at the pawn shop was in mint condition with no scratches and I could have it right away for less money.  Samash was out of stock on all colors and would have been backordered until June because of demand.  I did find that Music123.com would beat the price and got them to $190 and the only color they had, which is what I wanted, was Natural (the one I bought was natural as well).  I would have bought it from them if the pawn shop had not gone down as far as he did.  Another guitar I found was at Mars Music.  It was a Washburn (not acoustic electric) for $149.  Had good action and felt good.  I still preferred the Ovation though and had made up my mind that I wanted an Acoustic/electric. Anyway, long story short, don't pay attention to name brands or price just find one that feels good to you. So much so that you won't want to put it down. ps. Take your time