Blueridge BG-60

Solid sitka top, rosewood b/s, same build stats as other reviews here. Given that this is an excellent repro of a Gibson J-45 in look and feel but not exactly the same thing, I give it an "8" -- but a very high quality 8

Properly set up, this guitar rings like a bell. It has those excellent Gibson mids with some very nice low end. Note -- I switched the strings from lights (.012) to mediums (.013) and the added heft really brought the guitar alive. Its not an overbuilt tank, actually quite light, but I suspect the bracing is a little on the heavier end.

Fit, finish all excellent. I bought mine used, but I can tell it stood up to its prior owner well. A couple of dings, but nothing major.

Nice bone nut and saddle. At this price point, you are usually dealing with plastic. Heck, Martin uses micarta and corian on their similarly priced offerings (X series).

Only knock on the instrument for me is the tuners. Not great quality and need to be replaced. But I find this to be the case on most sub-$1000 guitars.

Solid guitar. I anticipate no problems

I've been playing almost 4 years and consider myself intermediate level. I play open mikes and a lot of gigs in my living room for my family and my pets. Compared to my Guild D55, I don't hear $2,000 worth of differnce between the two instruments. And it more than holds its own with my Yamaha FG750S which is a really terrific axe.

All in all, I truly have to give this one a "10" on value.

Well, you can get the guist of the specs from the online instrument sites...I would point out that the neck is quite thin and managable. The nut and saddle are in deed made from bone and not plastic. Tuners are more than adequate and hold tune well.

I would mention that my BG-60 did not come with a strap button at the neck joint. I didn't really mind this too much and added my own without much difficulty. All it took was a drill and a couple of bits.

I've been playing guitar as a hobbyist and amateur for about 15 years. Most of that time I've used a Martin D-28. I bought the BG-60 new in 2006 as a knock-around to keep in my truck so I wouldn't destroy the Martin (a family heirloom).

I wouldn't venture to say that the BG-60 rivals the Martin in tone or volume but for the money it's really quite astounding.

Probably the biggest surprise is the bass that comes out of this little guitar. All around the tone is fantastic. It won't knock down trees at a bluegrass festival like the Martin will but it's plenty loud enough indoors and in a quite outdoor setting. Intonation is good as well.

I was quite pleased with the aesthetics of this guitar. Though it is plywood, it is also beautiful. I gotta hand it to our Chinese brothers over there, they are doing quite a good job. The wood is gorgeous and fit and finish is clean and appealling.

This is a sturdy, well-built guitar. I have an 18 month old son who has gotten his hands on it more than once...and it SURVIVED! That's no small feat. He is quite prone to breaking most things he can. So, it's got a few dings and has be knocked over often.

I keep it on a wall hanger most of the time it's inside. It actually slipped off and busted on of the butter bean tuner buttons. These are plastic made to look like pearl. The button shattered and I've since had to find a replacement but this is small potatoes.

I'm going to leave this as no opinion. I once tried to get onto the Blueridge site but couldn't find any warranty info or repair contact numbers. This may have changed but I don't know. I have needed either fortunately.

I would definitly look for another Blueridge if mine were stolen. I paid around $380 for it...Music123 had it on sale from $499. They are near $550 no, I think. I'm a bit cheap for the most part and would hate to have to shell out $550 but there's absolutely NOTHING out there that can touch this guitar for the money. I've tried Fenders, Epiphones, Ibanez, etc. etc. and have yet to be as pleased with any of them as I am with this one!

This guitar was made in 2005 in China. It has a solid sitka spruce top with plywood (o.k. laminate) Brazillian Rosewood back and sides. Mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard. Bone nut and saddle. The scale is 24 3/4 and the Nut width is 1 11/16 inch. Came with case. It has the Sunburst finish, which is a bit too shiny in my opinion, but the color and grain of the back, even laminate, is very impressive---I paid 399 a couple of months ago through Musician's friend, it now sells for 499 on Musician's friend.

I recently got a Jorma Kaukonen DVD 2 where he plays a slope shoulder Gibson (and always needing at least some type of reason to rationalize buying another guitar) I decided to look around for a similar "knock off", I wanted a guitar with a bit more volume on the bass notes, and a bit more volume in general. And since I didn't have 2-3 thousand dollars handy I chose the Blueridge because of the reviews I have read. And make no mistake this thing sounds fantastic for the money. But if you want to keep the sound your going to have to deal with some very high action (at least mine had very high action). The saddle had to be sanded down just a tad---the relief on the neck and the nut were fine--and adjusting the saddle really helped the action, but I did notice a little bit of loss in the hearty sound it had out of the box. It still sounds wonderful though, I don't think I could get a guitar like this and case for this type of price. One note though, the neck is very slim and the string spacing is kind of tight, so the upside (particularly with the shorter scale) is that certain chord forms are easier to make, like when using your thumb on the sixth string, but the downside is that it can get a bit cramped, particulary with quick chord changes up and down the neck. I intially almost sent it back because of the slim neck and shorter scale, but the tone and the guitar just grew on me the longer I had it. So I'd look at it, and say "o.k. I'm sending it back", then pick it up play it and say "man that sounds awesome I can't send it back"---When the sound of the guitar makes you keep it, notwithstanding some playability issues, you know you have to give it a 10 in the sound category.

As I said above, the action was high out of the box, but sanding down the saddle about 1/32 of an inch seemed to do the trick.

Have not had the guitar that long (couple of months) can't give an opinion. Have read that the tuners break, but mine seem fine.

Not had to deal with anyone as of yet.

The guitar gets the 8 because of the action, slim neck and the tight string spacing, but it would get a 10 but for those things cause the sound is a 10 and that's really what everyone is looking for. However, it took me a while to warm up to this guitar because of the slim neck, so you might want to play one before buying one on line, but not many places carry blueridge (that I'm aware of)---so if your willing to gamble the return postage and your looking for something under 500.00 this would not be a bad guitar to check out.