Best Steel String Acoustic Guitar Under $500

Best Steel String Acoustic Guitar Under $500 Reviewed

Are you a beginner musician who wants to learn the guitar? Do you want something that doesn’t burn a hole in your pockets? There are good steel-string guitars under $500, some may not sound as good but some do. From mellow bold tones, to a bright clear tone, there is a guitar for you.

You might think that a guitar below 500 has some setbacks, but there are guitars in this list that sounds more expensive than it is. These are some of the best steel-string acoustic guitars for less than $500 indeed.

               The Seagull S6 is one of the most known recommended beginner guitar for over 10 years now, but this is an intermediate guitar for the level of quality it offers. This guitar is not a fancy one, no fancy inlays, no weird looking designs, you’ll only find basic looks mixed with topnotch build and tone quality. This guitar is made with a solid pressure tested Cedar top, while Cedar top guitars don’t give out a bright tone, it gives out a mellow, rich tone that some describe as a tone with a personality.

The back of the guitar is made from a beautiful piece of Canadian Wild Cherry. Cherry isn’t typically used for guitars in this price point, perhaps the only common material used in this guitar is for the fretboard which is rosewood. One slightly different design that the Seagull S6 offers is the alignment of its tuners, which is aligned straight to the nut, and according to Seagull, this tuner alignment helps in attaining tuning stability for a long time, and the guitar delivered that quality.

For the price point, this guitar is in, this guitar already included Compensated Tusq nut and saddle, which beginner guitars rarely get. The S6 also gets a C neck profile, while others don’t find a C profile comfortable due to its thickness, the neck of this guitar is easy to get used to, with all the features this guitar has for the price point it is in, this is the best quality-oriented steel-string acoustic guitar for under a $500.

The Yamaha APX600 is a modern, thin body acoustic guitar, with preamps built-in so you can use this in gigs. In the build quality aspect, the APX600 has a Solid spruce top, which is pretty standard for beginner guitars, this also has a Nato wood back, and a rosewood fingerboard.

This guitar’s main selling point is that it is an acoustic-electric guitar for a cheap price point, the preamp on this guitar offers controls for Volume, low, mid, and high so your tone is always in your control.

With the Yamaha APX600 the Spruce top provides a rich bright tone, and combined with the steel-string setup, this guitar sounds, sharp, loud, and clear. The fingerboard is easy to play with, giving comfort to extended playing time, and the neck is thin and anyone can play this easily,

The black or other colored finishes look beautiful, but other players still like the natural, unpainted surfaces in acoustic guitars, since others believe that painting a guitar affects their tone, but with the APX600, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

When buying this guitar, you also get a free gig bag for extra protection when you are using this guitar on gigs, the guitar also has plastic bits around the edges to keep this guitar from being dented when you are using it. This guitar is a bang for your buck considering that it is a hybrid setup, this guitar may lack the overall tone quality, but in general, it is one of the best steel-string acoustic guitar that you can get for under $500.

 The Epiphone EJ-200SCE, the little brother of the Gibson J-200, but for a cheap price, is it even close to the tone performance of the legendary Gibson J-200? Definitely not, but for the money, the Epiphone EJ-200SCE will give you a good quality for the money you pay.

In build quality, the Epiphone EJ-200SCE is made from a Sitka Spruce top, which will give you a decent balance between bright tones and a dark deep tone. The back and sides are made out of Maple, and the neck is made of Hard Maple which has a SlimTaper D shape.

With the overall finish, the EJ-200SCE has the iconic genuine mother of pearl crown inlays, a false-tortoiseshell pickguard, black and white bindings, and you can pick from 4 different finishes, which is natural, vintage, black, and vintage sunburst.

The EJ-200SCE has an electric pickup that uses 2 CR2 batteries, and has a slider to balance the two pickups on the guitar. And in the end, the Epiphone EJ-200SCE is a cheaper, mass-produced version of the Gibson J-200, that for under $500, still offers a good performance for its price point, but a disappointment considering Epiphone is a branch of Gibson, but this is still one of the best guitars you can buy for the price.

To Sum it Up

There you have our top picks for the best Steel String Acoustic Guitar for Under five hundred, this list had some really good ones to the somewhat disappointing traits of some guitar, but for under $500 most of the guitars are worth it for that price point.