Hi.  My name is Richard, and I run this website.  I’ve been doing the “best guitar” column thing here for a while, starting at $100, and it’ll end at $1,000.  For this entry, we’ll be looking at used and new guitars for around $600.  Just one guy’s opinion.  Mine.

Used

As always, the best deals are used.  What can you get for $600 on the used market?  Good stuff, for sure.

  1. Gibson Les Paul Tribute.  Yes, I know I listed this at the $500 and said it might be possible to find one at that price.  But you can definitely find these at the $600 price point.  A real American made Gibson Les Paul.  No fancy flame top, no binding, and the inlays are of questionable origin, but it’s a Les Paul and it sounds and plays like one.
  2. Sterling by Music Man JP157.  It’s light, it plays great, and it sounds very good.
  3. PRS SE Custom 24 Floyd.  It’s an SE Custom 24 with a locking trem system, which is cool.
  4. Fender Classic Player Baja Telecaster.  This is a great, great Tele.
  5. Fender 1950S Stratocaster.  This is a great, great Strat for the money.

There are a billion other choices.  It was hard to choose just 5.  But this is likely as high as I personally would go, in terms of spending money on a guitar.  You know, “Budget Guitarist” and all that?  I used to have a ceiling of $500, but that was 5 years ago.  Now it’s $600.

New

If you want new, there are lots of good choices:

  1. Fender Limited Edition Standard Strat.  Pretty guitar, plays good, sounds good.
  2. PRS SE 245.  The PRS version of a lighter Les Paul, made in South Korea.  It’s a good deal for the money.
  3. G & L Tribute Comanche.  A Strat “copy” with interesting noise cancelling pickups.  Yes, I said Strat COPY.  They have to call it an “S type guitar.”  I don’t.  Regardless, these are seriously good guitars that are in some ways better than Fender’s offerings at this price point.
  4. Dean V79 Flame Top.  It’s a Flying V by not Gibson.  I’ve played this guitar and it’s great.

There are also a kabillion guitars with locking trem systems from Jackson, Ibanez, so on and so forth.  They’re all about the same in terms of quality – expect to do some setup on any of them, and the pickups will be so so.  But for most people, those pickups will be good enough.  But we don’t do good enough here at Budget Guitarist.  I’ll go ahead and say this right now: There are only two guitars on this page where I wouldn’t touch the stock pickups:  The Gibson Les Paul Tribute, and the Baja Tele.  For around $129, you can get a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates bridge pickup that will sound better than anything on this page.  For single coil guitars, it’s a little more pricey because you need all three to match.  Most humbucker players spend 90% of their time on the bridge pickup, and the neck pickup is going to sound dark anyway so you can get away with saving a little money on it.

Anyway, that’s the $600 round up.  I’d be happy to own any guitar on this page.