WHAT’S WRONG WITH CHEAP GUITARS?

In every pastime that involves buying gear there’s a narrative arc you see again and again – and guitars are no exception. When absolute beginners embark on a new hobby, they tend to go out and buy dirt-cheap kit to get them started. Most of us will remember painful early experiences learning barre chords on boxy dreadnoughts with tortuously high actions or stretching fingers to breaking point trying to play bland and flabby nylon-string acoustics. That is Phase One of the GAS Curve, as I’d like to term it.

If the beginner’s interest in playing guitar survives