QUOTE (ziophils @ Dec 27 2008, 05:20 PM)

Haha the most amazing thing happened today, i was crawling the net in search of a nice Alvarez I could afford, so far I'd not had any luck and as my previous post had indicated I'd long ago given up really. I stumbled upon a local guitar shop I'd never heard of and you guessed it they had some Alvarez guitars in stock, so as soon as I finished work I jumped into my car to get to the store before it closed. I purchased an MD80 for $300 dollars because the only reason they had these guitars in stock was because theyd bought them from another shop who had to close down in the credit crunch.
PS: I wanted an Alvarez because DADFAD said soemthing once about a relative buying one for him and he thought it wasn't too bad for a non gibson, so what goes for him goes for me lol :-)
Yeah, you might want to look at their AJ-60. I have an AJ-60, given to me by my son for Father's Day about four years ago. (My son, who is not very guitar-knowledgeable, when he got his first good job out of school, bought it for me because he said he felt bad for me because all of my guitars were old ones.

) I was surprised by how well-made and good-sounding it was for the money. And they really are pretty nice looking guitars too.

QUOTE
Alvarez AJ60 Artist Series Jumbo Acoustic Guitar - AJ60
Artist Series
The Alvarez Artist Series offers solid tops and a choice of colors black and blonde. Look for bound fingerboards and headstocks, nickel hardware and exquisite white pearl inlay. The AJ60 is also available in black.
-Specifications
Body Style Jumbo
Back/Sides Maple
Top Solid Engelmann Spruce
Finish Natural-Blonde or Black
Rosette White Pearl
Body Binding White/Black Multi-ply
Fingerboard Rosewood
Fingerboard Inlay 12th Fret Diagonal
Tuning Machines Nickel
Bridge Rosewood
My son over-payed about $650 for it, but you can find them easily in the $500ish or less range. They also come with on-board electronics. Anyway, it plays and sounds nice. It's not some $3000 or $4000 Gibson or Taylor jumbo, but a pretty good buy for the money. The solid spruce top gives it more brightness (which, if using on-board electronics doesn't really make much difference, most of the sound being determined by the electronics). It's now over four years old with no structural or action problems. I'm sure there are several other good ones in that range by different companies, but that's one I'm pretty familiar with.
Also, in the less-than-$300 range the Yamaha FG700-SB isn't a bad guitar if you can find one. Someone I know wanted me to check out budget-guitars for him in that price range. I thought it was the best out of the dozen or so I tried (including the budget-Martin, baby Taylor, etc.).
In the end, you usually get what you pay for, but there's nothing wrong with getting the best value for your money whether it's $300 or $3000.