The Yamaha FG700 is considered an entry level guitar but you wouldn’t know it from the sound. The action is great but a little high if you play on the down the neck. Like all good dreadnoughts it has a booming bass but overall pretty it’s pretty well balanced. This guitar features a solid spruce top, rosewood fingerboard and bridge. The back, sides and neck of this guitar are made from nato wood. If you haven’t heard of this variety of wood you soon will. Nato is available in large pieces. It’s strong, dense, very durable and it polishes up nicely. Many guitar manufacturers are using this instead of the traditional mahogany. It may be a cheaper wood but it has excellent properties for certain parts of the guitar. You will more than likely see this wood in future guitar construction. It has a nice high gloss finish and chrome tuners. There is white binding around the sides of the guitar that’s a nice touch. The guitar stays in tune during hard strumming but and has a nice light touch when you fingerpick. I didn’t notice any flaws on the guitar I played but I have heard of sloppy gluing that got by the quality control folks. This is purely cosmetic but worth mentioning. I really like this guitar and would definitely check out the FG700. As with all guitars sound is purely subjective so play everything you can get your hands on and find the sound that’s right for you.
Yamaha is a huge company. They have their name on everything from motorcycles to boats to clarinets but don’t let this fool you. They have factories in Japan and Taiwan and to my knowledge do not outsource their guitars. Pretty average but for the price you can’t go wrong.
