Ranking Worst To Best Import Guitar Brands Under $300

in today's video we're going to do the worst of best brands for under 300. so i've done a bunch of these lists and you guys wanted me to do a specific one under 300 and so if you want to check out the other lists like this you can click the links down below in the description now a couple things to note like with all these videos i'm only talking about new products not used and i'm only talking about guitars that are imported into the us currently as of making this video so let's get started with number 35 which is a two-way tie between donner guitars and silver tone now what's interesting about these two brands is they're pretty much the same to me in other words it's just another brand of guitars that make strat copies for 140 to 130 and there's nothing wrong with them but obviously there's nothing exciting about them which is why they made it last on this list number 34 is mono price and i can almost say the same thing about that brand as i did the last two but keep in mind they're not supposed to be exciting they're supposed to be affordable priced instruments however as you'll see on this list there are some companies that do some pretty amazing guitars in a very affordable price range number 33 is hard luck kings now these guitars look really cool and you see a lot of ads on social media for them however there's a couple things that plagued this brand first it's their fit and finish although they have a great price point and cool looking guitars they are riddled with all kinds of issues number 32 is oscar schmidt this is a sub brand of washburn and although they make some great affordable instruments and you'll see them in a lot of mom and pop shops there's nothing super exciting about them again i don't have a whole lot of faults with their fit and finish or quality so they scored good for that but they're definitely not going to make it on the high part of this list number 31 is glary guitars one thing you could say about them is they are the cheapest guitars out there and they're not that bad actually the ones i i reviewed i was really impressed with one thing i love about them which is what i said in the review is they are great for anyone who wants to learn to repair instruments and can't find maybe some beat up used instruments on craigslist you just want to get your hands on a nice guitar that's about 60 to 70 dollars and then work on it these are great guitars for that and if you really are budget conscious and you need a student level guitar at an absolute bottom rock price budget glary will fit that bill now we're in the top 30 and we're going to start with pv now pv has been really horribly performing on almost every list i've done and this list makes no exception the problem with pb is their instruments are no different than anything else being offered right now it's like they're just putting the pv brand on pretty much the same stuff i just mentioned a minute ago and the other brands it's not that they're bad by any means it's just they don't really excite anybody with what they're producing and the quality is not above any kind of par set by the the bottom part of this list number 29 is axl or it might be called axel i've always called it axl they do some really interesting finishes finishes that you don't see on guitars on this list and the fit and finish on them are pretty good number 28 is sx guitars and they make some really interesting guitars under the 300 price point and one of my favorites is their les paul copy at about 249 but they also make some interesting guitars under 199 that's also worth looking at number 27 is hoffner these are mostly travel guitars they're a little different out there but the fit and finish of the ones i played were fine and if you need a travel guitar they're relatively inexpensive compared to other travel size instruments in this category austin guitars now i gave austin good praise in the under 600 category as well austin is a brand you don't see very often but it is of course another brand that's doing strat tele uh les paul style knockoff guitars but the fit and finish seems to be really good i don't know what the company's doing but usually when you play them their fit and finish is good and you're not seeing a whole lot of issues with the ones i've come in contact with number 25 is washburn guitars now washburn is really as i've said in all the other videos not really in the electric guitar game anymore they're really focused on their acoustic game number 24 is arya now arya again is a does some really cool japanese guitars especially in the higher price range we remember them from the 80s they have a couple guitars in this price category and again not a lot of offerings and you'll see this consistently as i go through this list a lot of the brands are even on this list which they're let's be honest is not as many as you would think are not offering a lot of product sub 300 number 23 is stag guitars like the chili if you're from the us you kind of know the can chili stag these are stag guitars and what's interesting is uh when i did the list of under 600 guitars they didn't fare so well but they fare a little better in this price point because they offer more guitars in this price point the fit and finish is actually on par with what's out there right now and more importantly there's a model i really like called the silver ray nash deluxe now this guitar is 239 dollars has a set neck and it's interesting looking now that brings us to number 22 which is vintage guitars now vintage guitars makes a lot of guitars in the uh in the affordable category but they don't make as many as you think in the sub 300 category but one guitar i really like of theirs is the v120 because it has a hardtail it has one pickup it's very streamlined and of course it really fits the need for those you guys that really like gibson's and has that gibson vibe to it number 21 is mitchell guitars mitchell is a guitar center brand and in a price point where a lot of brands are not giving you very many colors very many options to choose from this brand and this lineup is loaded with not only colors and options but different types of pickup options if you're looking for something and you want to have a choice of what you're looking at this might be a brand to check out we're in the top 20 now and number 20 brings it in with daisy rock guitars now the guitar i like from daisy rock is the rock candy guitar it comes in a metallic purple metallic pink why that's interesting is it's a flashy looking guitar and sometimes these kind of instruments can really excite the younger players in getting excited about playing guitar this guitar is one of those guitars that i think looks more expensive than it is and it plays pretty decently the fit and finish is again on par with most the affordable brands that are on this list now number 19 is a guitar called travel now this guitar plays great the fit and finish on it is really good and what i like about it is it's made for the semi-pro and pro player to have something to travel with this guitar comes in at 300 which puts it at double what a mini guitar would cost but keep in mind if you were to buy a small player this guitar once they kind of outgrow it it then can be their travel guitar so i think if you're gonna buy a mini guitar for a someone who think really is going to stick with guitar definitely consider this because this is fun exciting and something they can keep at number 18 we have hayden guitars from rondo music who does sx and agile the eg 491 this guitar is 169 its fit and finish looks and way it sounds is on par with any squire at 3.99 and it's hard not to like a guitar that's half the price of a brand like squier now number 17 is kramer guitars now kramer only offers about two models in this price category and one of them i like more so is the beretta i like that they didn't try to put a floyd rose at this price point they used it just a standard tremolo that goes against the body so it's better for staying in tune it definitely looks cool and again you get a kramer brand name with that number 16 is schecter guitars now schechter as you know i'm a huge fan i love their guitars i highlight their quality all the time and this uh list is no exception they have great quality guitars they just don't offer very many in fact i can only find one and those are the c6 deluxe guitars and they actually come in cool colors not having a huge variety of guitars in this category does hurt the brand but fit and finish quality the way it plays ranks them right up there and gets them up on the list higher number 15 is a brand i'm sure a lot of you won't know and that's cng and what i like about cng is great finishes on the guitars really cool looking guitars they come with speakers built in they come with headphones with bluetooth they're really loaded with options they're definitely something different out there the ones i played i found very little issues with frets or any other things to go wrong price point seems to be on par for what you're getting it is definitely for someone looking for something different and that's why they scored high on this list number 14 is slick guitars i reviewed slick guitars one of the things i like about those guitars is that they use the guitar fetch pickups which i like they use really nice bridges very inexpensive the one i reviewed i think was sub 200 and again puts it on par with three to 400 guitars made from squire they even have relic and if you're into relic guitars this is pretty much the main affordable one now xavier seems like to me a more premium brand than the slick even though they're both by guitar fetish the one guitar i definitely think you should check out if you check out xavier is the rockabilly it feels really good it sounds really good at being in the lower part of the 200 range it's impressive that they were able to pull this off number 12 gives us sterling guitars now sterling again low options because it's just they're not a price point that these companies want to be in most your main brands are not in this price point at all or if they are in a small amount so you're going to notice a lot of off brands really dominating the under 300 category but sterling is not one of those it's a name brand instrument from music man they sound great they feel great some of them have fret sprout issues i think it's because they do unfinished necks obviously the guitars are made very quickly because it's a fast made instrument and sometimes the wood isn't done drying yet so the wood dries and the frets poke out now number 11 is yamaha and this is another brand i really like they have a great reputation for making quality and i think the pacifica is one of the best strat esque or copy type guitars out on the market and i think they offer a lot of cool features and colors and i found very few with fit and finish issues over the years and to be honest i think it should outperform some of the other guitar companies but some of the guitar companies offer a little better finish and a little more options and of course more variety of products in this price range now we're in the top 10 and number 10 is dean guitarist now dean didn't do so well my other list below 600 did pretty good above 600 but this is where i think dean really shines and one of the guitars that i really like from dean is the evo xm in this price range i think the fit and finish is on par with a lot of the better more premium product lines in this uh this list but one thing i like about dean is they offer their products to the big chain stores and the small mama pops so you can really get your hands on these guitars and either either the online format or the real intimate you know a hands-on kind of format and so that's why i give them some extra points for that as well number nine is court guitars court builds most the brands on this list some of the best instruments i've worked on under 300 have been court guitars because i think without having to pay the premium for that brand they really can offer you a lot of finish work which really makes the guitars play and feel really good now number eight is squire guitars and i know what you're thinking wait what how can squire not be in the top five if not number one who could own the under 300 category more than the largest guitar brand in the world which is squire well what you're going to notice is times have changed under 300 squire offers very few choices in fact they have the affinity line which i really like in fact i recommend checking out the affinity teles the bullet line and then of course the mini line other than that they don't really offer anything under 300 bucks their fit and finish is good the quality of the brand is good the the customer service behind the brand is fantastic and that's what all scored them up but to be honest with you there are a lot of brands putting out superior product more options less prices and the only thing squire has going for it is again great brand reputation and if there's one overwhelming theme i've noticed when i was kind of working this out was some of the unknown brands are really working a lot harder to get these lower price dollar guitars in your hands number seven is ibanez now ibanez makes a lot of offerings in this price point and that's why they kind of did really well plus they make a couple models that i think are great first guitars and even second guitars and one of them is the rg rg421 it comes in a great finish it has a good sound the pickups are pretty decent the fit and finish is really good and i've had very few issues with this particular model number six is gretch guitars now i know you guys are gonna lose your mind because on the other list you're like why does gretch score so low and i said before because we're really looking at solid bodies not hollow bodies and gretch doesn't offer a whole lot of solid bodies but in this category they offer a great guitar called the streamliner junior jet club this guitar is made in indonesia plays great looks amazing and i think if i was gonna buy a guitar right now for 299 below this would be the guitar that i would purchase i like the way it looks i like the way it plays i like the fact that it has a major brand on it so it feels cool like you own something really interesting uh that's fun to talk about not that that's the most important thing it's just a small category but it is a category it's a guitar that i think you could keep and for that tone of sound i think you'll keep it it's a nice guitar so of course now we're in the top five now before we get into top five a couple things i want to remind you again you're going to find that the big brand names didn't do as well because they don't really want to be in the under 300 price category that is very obvious some of the brands that i really like in guitars that i've said on the other list don't even make guitars in this category so let's get into who is actually making good guitars in the top five of this category and we're gonna start with number five which is jackson guitars jackson guitars has been working super hard to dominate different categories of prices but most importantly they've been really working hard at getting out their inexpensive models of their guitars and one of the guitars i really like is the js32 which has a floyd rose which is cool to offer that option and a sub 300 guitar is cool but what's great is a model i like even more is the js22 which is basically the same guitar without the floyd and again cool colors natural finishes the fit and finish on the neck is great and of course playability in the neck carve is gonna be highly scored and so of course that was what drives it up the list so high number four is firefly guitars now you're probably not familiar with them but they're another offshoot brand and they make some les paul copies and other copy guitars and i gotta tell you some of the guitars i played have been really impressive and the price points are super low and of course they're making guitars that a lot of main manufacturers main brand name ones will not touch in other words they will not put that kind of quality at this price point it just doesn't exist so if you want better quality for the price you're spending you're gonna have to get away from the brand labels and this is definitely one of those guitars that really demonstrate that by removing a brand name label you now are getting a much better quality guitar at a lower price the downfall though is the brand labels do bring something to the table first they bring better service in other words they have bigger customer service departments and more dealers more ways to help you when you have a problem but more importantly they also have better quality assurance in other words they're able to stop some of the defective instruments from getting out to the market so firefly is one of those brands that i like the quality i like the guitars but i think you're more likely to get one of those duds and as long as you're buying from somebody you trust i think you'll be fine number three is epiphone so actually a big brand made it onto the top five now jackson's a pretty big brand obviously they're owned by fender but epiphone i really wasn't shocked when they scored so high because even though again they don't offer a ton of guitars in the sub 300 range what they do offer is really good including one of my favorite guitars in this price range which is the studio lt which is basically a bolt-on studio guitar some players are like hey it's a bolt-on that doesn't mean anything so i don't care if the neck's glued in or bolt-on what i care about is how good the guitar sounds and plays and to me an epiphone studio lt is a guitar that i can grab tune it up play it and it's going to sound good it's going to perform it looks cool and it does everything i needed to do number two is tajima guitars now tajima did pretty good on the other list it didn't do great but it really of course killed in this category and here's why they're guitars like the tw55 which is their tele style guitar the tw540 which is their strat style guitar to me i think i think a lot of players will agree with this if you put your hands on them they feel exactly like 399 dollar squires in fact in almost every way so if you're looking at some of those classic vibe and other 300 and 350 400 squires these guitars at almost half the price feel and look the same way so you're getting a lot of quality uh for what you're getting and i have to and to top it off i did a video with marty schwartz from the marty schwartz channel and marty bought one of those guitars and i did a a mod where i modded it up and he'll tell you he loves it modded but he liked it before it was modded now we have number one now before i say number one i think most of you probably guessed it by now but i was actually shocked by this when i was scoring guitars out in the categories like i said there's 24 categories everything from how the guitars feel to how many times i've had to repair them whether they have a left-handed options whether they have uh after-market high-end aftermarket parts added to them uh there's every kind of category you can think of and this company just dominated it was harley benton harley benton is funded by a billion dollar retailer in europe which is toumen so it doesn't surprise me that this company is out to get market share and the other categories i've done on these videos i've really highly recommended both prsse and epiphone i really like epiphone and i really like psse for five to six hundred dollars seven hundred dollar instruments i think they do great job i think the fit and finish on those guitars are good and i like them what i can tell you is is that harley bentons make guitars that feel like the ses and the epiphones for about 170 bucks and that's very impressive uh the features are almost identical the looks are definitely identical so what i'm basically saying is i think there's a reason why you see these constant videos about people being shocked by harlow benton but more importantly i hope this video really shows this you can see now that there's not a lot of guitar companies making guitars sub 300 the big brands are really really pushing the 4 to 500 range and when they do dive into the under 300 they go right to the 100 kind of just student level instruments and so there's not a lot of companies trying to live in the mid 150 250 price point because it's a tough price point it's almost impossible to make guitars at this price point and of course impress people on top of that and so you're noticing there's a few brands on this list that i think did it better than anyone else harley ben is definitely one of those brands and i think no matter what the flaws you find with harley bentons the price points are just hard to beat for what you're getting and so i would definitely check those out so there's my list i hope you guys enjoyed it i hope you understand some of the logic i've applied to these videos and i hope you want to see more i want to do these are brand videos so these are about the brands i'd like to do my top worst to best guitars in price categories i'm going to be doing some hollow bodies some acoustics and finish up the base series as well and don't forget to like and subscribe to support the channel i really appreciate that share with a friend any of that stuff helps and supports the channel and that's greatly appreciated as always i want to thank you for your time till the next time know your gear [Music] [Applause] i had kind of

Channel: Phillip McKnight

Views: 229,259

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Id: KCWoR0gfgUk

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020