Bristol by Blueridge - New Guitars

I ordered this guitar for my nephew, who wants to learn to play guitar. I chose it on the basis of the three previous Amazon reviews and some online research that convinced me that Blueridge is a good guitar maker. The reviews seemed almost too good to be true.Well, the guitar arrived quickly (I'm signed up for unlimited free 2 day shipping) and I was very anxious to unbox it. However, I waited for nephew Mike to show up for the unboxing ritual. No pun intended, but I as impressed right out of the box. The guitar is very attractive and appears well constructed.I own and play an old, expensive, beat up but great sounding Guild jumbo and a new, $600 list Taylor dreadnought (which I believe is a great guitar for its price) and I love both. I can't really give a meaningful comparison between the Bristol and the other guitars, but I can say that as someone used to playing nice guitars I found myself really loving the Bristol. Its surprisingly loud and rich sounding, with very good action right out of the box.Anyone who is looking for a nice guitar in its price range will definitely NOT be disappointed with the Blueridge by Bristol. I think you'd be happy with it at twice the price. In fact, even though I have 2 good acoustics, a nice old Strat electric and am planning to buy another electric this month, I'm trying to convince myself that I need one. At this price, I might be able to!

I took a risk on this cheap guitar ($105 with shipping when I bought it). I am completely impressed and have recommended this guitar to many others. I grew up with only a Martin D-37 in the house, and also enjoy playing on a Baby Taylor. I have bought and tried to play other cheap guitars before and found them to be so unenjoyable they are basically worthless. I have $200 Fender that is hard to play and dead sounding. This Blueridge has a great neck, nice low action, bright sound, and just feels great to play. It also has a beautiful finish and is very lightweight (a sign of a well made guitar). It is not quite as nice as the Taylor and Martin I have played, but almost! It is definitely nicer than many $500-$1000 guitars I have played before. I would buy this guitar again in a second and may buy more to keep in other locations or take on trips.The reason I originally decided to get this guitar was I played a mid-level Blueridge years ago and it blew me away how nice it was for only ~$500. This guitar is also a huge bargain for a learning guitar, practice guitar, or second guitar. Paying less than $200 gives you a great beach, campfire, or travel guitar that is nice to play, sounds good, and takes the stress out of damaging an expensive guitar!

Bought this guitar for my son. He loves it and his instructor told him it was a great guitar.

I've been playing for 9 years and was worried this won't be on par with the mid-end guitar I've been using. The guitar both looks and feels great. The finish is very well done. It's got a warm and full sound to it that I really enjoyed, that at times I found myself reluctant to stop playing. And I was really pleased with how smooth the fretting was, it felt like it took less effort to move between the frets and press down than on several guitars I've played on previously.The only gripe I have is that the fret position markers (dots) are really dark and hard to spot (see pictures). But that's not a deal breaker by any means, since when playing you would normally look at the markers on the side of the neck, which were pretty clear. Still, aesthetically the dark markers don't look as nice.But overall I was quite impressed, especially for such a great price. You know a guitar is good when it encourages you to play more often again, and makes it hard to stop and put it down.

I've had an early Blueridge in the past, back when they were a very cheap import from Singapore or something like that- and thought it was an absolutely perfect instrument for playing outdoors at festivals and other loud venues. When mine was stolen, I was sad to see that the Blueridge line had gone up in price substantially (I think the quality went up too from what I'd gotten 20 years ago). This Bristol, which looks and plays much like the old Blueridge line used to, has been an EXCELLENT replacement! It's loud, it's low-end is distinctive and loud and has great tone. I play old-time music (think early country/bluegrass) and it's perfect for the bass-run heavy strumming style used in our music and loud enough to keep up with a loud bluegrass band while still having an excellent tone. I haven't had a chance to play it outdoors at festivals or to perform on the street, but from the volume, it seems like it'd be great for this, without being so expensive that I'd worry about damaging or losing it to theft. I've played a number of real Martin dreadnoughts and the cheap imported copies weren't that great in the past- but the importers are starting to really get it right with cheap instruments like this one. I'm very picky about tone and dislike some vintages of Martins even= and this cheap instrument passes my standards with flying colors.I bought this guitar expecting to have to spend some money getting a truss rod or action adjusted, but it's actually perfectly true and keeps tune well, far better than most cheap guitars like it used to be. I highly recommend this for beginners or anyone who doesn't want to carry an expensive instrument or can't afford one.

It was an impulse purchase and has been my entry into learning to play the guitar.Pretty good for the money but after handling other, slightly more expensive guitars (Seagull) there is better value to be had if you plan on playing longer term.If you are testing the waters and want to get value for money with a mind to upgrading in a year or so then it is a good entry point.