Best Budget Classical Acoustic-Electric Guitar

Yamaha NTX700

• Don Makoviney
• Last Updated: February 9, 2016

---

When you want a great nylon string guitar that sounds great acoustic and plugged in, look no further than the Yamaha NTX700. With a narrow radial fretboard, cutaway, and surprisingly great electronics it's a perfect addition to any guitar player's arsenal.

---

How We Picked

My daughter has been hounding me to teach her guitar for quite a while now. She needs to have a guitar of her own on which to practice. She loves playing live, and she is also learning to record, so she would like to have some guitar skills when needed.

I decided to surprise her with a new nylon stringed guitar. I suppose our pick is “classical” in the sense it has nylon strings, but it is also a cutaway, and a thinner, radial neck which fits my daughter’s hands perfectly. If you are interested in a traditional, classical guitar, check out our best classical guitar guide.

I had a bad experience buying a Tacoma guitar for the kids once. The action was high, unrepairable, and the thing barely stayed in tune. I looked at the Fender, but the reviews left me a little worried, plus a little hands on time at our local music store confirmed- the Yamaha just feels like higher quality – in fact it feels quite luxurious and inspiring.

Played acoustically, it won’t sound as pretty as a purely classical guitar. That isn’t the point with this guitar. If you want a purely classical guitar at a budget price, check out our pick here. However the sound is quite nice, and my daughter isn’t learning classical guitar. She wants to learn chord shapes, strumming patterns, and a instrument that she can use to record that stuff and incorporate it into her songwriting.

Reviews

Customer and player reviews have been overwhelmingly positive:

At Acoustic Guitar Forum one user said, “My dad just got an NTX700 guitar. I went over the night he got it, and wound up playing it for a couple of hours. Its a great guitar! Lovely tone, well constructed, good electronics. The fretboard is radiused like a steel string guitar, and feels very good in my smallish hands. It is definitely a keeper. You can’t go wrong with one.”

Music Radar says, “For anyone after a different sound but with steel-string-like playability, this is the place to start: an absolutely superb modern nylon-string electro.”

 

Guitarist.co.uk says, “We’ve not heard a plugged-in electro nylon that, for the price, sounds better across such a broad stylistic range. What elevates the NXs from the rest of the pack is this purpose-designed pickup/preamp system, which from the NTX700 up to the ‘dream-on’ NCX2000 sounds fantastic, translating the dynamics, nuances and quality of each different-sounding model in a very natural fashion.”

Accessories

If you are buying this as a gift to someone, as I did, you might want to pick up a few things to go along with the NTX700.

Strings

Some reviewers have complained about the strings on the guitar from the factory. User reviews at Amazon narrowed the best replacement strings down to D’Addario EJ45 Pro-Arte Normal Tension Classical Guitar Strings.

Regardless of which brand of strings you buy, make sure and stick with “Normal Tension” classical guitar strings. The Yamaha NTX700 does not do well with “High Tension” strings.

Normal Tension = GOOD
High Tension = NOT GOOD

Case

There is no case specifically for the NTX700, but many owners recommend the Gator APX-Style Guitar Case (GC-APX).

---

Tell Me If There's A Deal For This

Originally published: October 15th, 2014

---