Cheap guitar of the week #42 - Yamaha APX500

Ordinarily I would never recommend a thin-body acoustic, but this is a rare exception.

The Yamaha APX500 acoustic-electric is one of the very few thin-bodied acoustics that I would actually recommend buying.

A thin-body acoustic is not like a parlor guitar. This guitar actually has the same dimensions as a full-size acoustic, save for that the body is thinner.

It's usually the case that full-size acoustics with a thin body have an awful acoustic sound to them, best described as very "boxy" with barely any projection. The APX500 however actually as a full-bodied sound. I don't know how Yamaha is able to do it, but they somehow manage to get a full sound out of a thin body.

Is the sound as big as a full-size with the same projection? No. But it's pretty darned close.

The APX500 is actually a nice guitar to have because it serves well both in studio and on stage. It has the electric bits to handle mixers and so on, and also has a full-size look to it, which to some is important. Yamaha also knows how to build an acoustic guitar correctly that can take a knock or two.

It's a good guitar overall. Easy to play, easy to plug in, predictable, and won't break the bank.

Published 2016 Jan 20