Garrison Guitars AG-400

Finish is gloss body satin neck no finish on the fretboard.

Dreadnought body style with rosewood bridge and compensated bridge saddle.

Tuners are sealed chrome units... smooth and solid.

21 fret nato neck with assymentrical 'C' profile not to large ( ala Gibson ) not too small and thin... I place it's size at the midway point. Medium frets, dot markers, rosewood fretboard, neck binding.

No accessories with this purchase.

This is a 2006 model made in China.

Solid Cedar top rosewood sides and back.

Body binding front and back.

Rosewood headstock laminate no headsstock binding.

No electronics.

This model is a couple of rungs up the chain for it's series. It has a good feature set for it's price.

This Guitar SOUNDS INCREDIBLE. I compared it to about 45 other guitars in matching price points and above to $1200... names like larivee, Crafter, Ovation, Takemine, Taylor, etc... Yes I spent several hours in the Acoustic room of the shop that I bought this guitar and this guitar far exceeded the others for richness of tone and projection... it sounded better than all the others.

No amps or effects used. This is a bare bones no frills acoustic guitar... no electronics.

No noise, no fret buss, no nut buzz.

The fullest richest sound you will hear from most current production guitars up to quadruple it's price point.

As for briteness... it is brite and balanced with a clear presance and beautiful mids and lows. This is a speactacular guitar for tone... it will be tough to top this at this price point.
Toi rate this at a 10 is truely an understatment it's an 11!

The Factory setup and all other aspects of workmanship and quality control are exceptional. Mr. Griffith put a lot of work into the complete package and it shows... he did not miss a thing.
If this were an electric it would be categorized in with Paul Reed Smith and Ernie Ball Music man.
To sum things up in a word... FLAWLESS

No Pick ups

Bridge and nut are perfect and as you know that is a rarity even in much higher priced guitars.

Given that Mr. Griffith is obviously a man of great ability I see this guitar being very road worthy and a guitar that will last. All construction and the attention to detail for these guitars leads me to resolve that this guitar will withstand live playing for years and years.
ALL Hardware is solid on this guitar.
The finish is well done and seems to be of good quality as is the application... no bubbles, no lifting or streaking.

I believe this guitar is dependable but live without a back up is just wrong... for the price buy two!

I'm giving a 9 only because this is my first garrison and I have not had it long enough to warrant a 10.

I have had no dealing with Garrison... the warrantee is for 5 years.

I have been playing for over 20 years and own or have owned too much gear to mention here. If this guitar were stolen I would replace it at once and my bank account would not suffer much.

What I love about this guitar...
This guitar sounds and plays absolutly GREAT! The tone is golden, the neck profile ( assymentrical 'C' ) is perfect, the fretwork is emmaculate, the woods are exceptional for a guitar at this price point. The tuning machines are ver smooth and solid and do not slip, the nut is perfectly cut, inlays are well done, binding is flawless, finish is awsome. A close look shows there is a lot of design gone into these Garrison Guitars and the price is more than fair.
My favorite feature is the TONE!
I hate nothing about this guitar.
As mentioned above I compared it to about 45 other guitars.
There is nothing else I wish it had... if I wanted anything else I would have picked one of the other many models of Garrison Guitars.
This will not be my only Garrison I plan on having atleast two other models.
Too say this guitar is a fantastic value is really not doing it justice... go play one at a dealer you will not be dissapointed. There is not a single guitar on the current market that offers what Garrison offers for this price... absolutly unequalled in quality for the money.

Garrison AG-400 acoustic dreadnaught, manufactured 2004 in China.
Gloss finish natural color solid cedar top
Gloss finish laminated mahogany sides and back
Nato satin finish neck & headstock
Rosewood fingerboard & bridge
Diecast chrome tuners
D'Addario EXP 16s strings
Mother of pearl dots
Active bracing (special glass-fiber bracing supporting the cedar top)
White binding on body and neck
20 frets

As far as features go or looks, there isn't anything really special about this guitar except for its pretty solid red cedar top and the Griffiths Active Bracing which is only in the top section of the AG series guitars. But who cares, give me sound quality first.

The sound on this guitar is absolutely incredible for its price. It has a very rich and full sound with slightly less brightness than guitars we played with spruce tops but still far more than those with mahogany tops. The guitar has a good blended sound with strong bass and midrange. The guitar oozes with sustain and the notes ring oh so clear. Almost every fret played a clear and true harmonic which we could not do on anything near this price. There is nothing to dislike about this guitars sound. Although it is not a Martin or Taylor, I would liken it much to their quality in richness. As far as price vs. performance, I believe the AG-400 to be quite the bargain.

The action of the factory setup was dead on perfect. There are no flaws in the binding, wood or in the gloss finish. I thought the gloss finish to be better than most of the low end guitars we looked at but I still like a satin finish better, just personal preference I guess. As with all innexpensive guitars, the edges of the fret bars are not filed smooth but were much better than most. The satin finish on the neck is smooth and makes for really fast playing. I only found one flaw on this whole guitar which was on the surface of the rosewood fingerboard, the 3rd fret has a small rough spot. The rosette is cheap but subtle so as not to stand out. Absolutely no glue mistakes. I'm surprised this guitar was made in China. All I can figure is that Garrison has really shaved down their profit margin in order to get better manufacturing contracts.

The guitar looks pretty durable; finish and assembly. The guitar is new, so I cannot really judge on reliability thus I will not judge for this category.

I have not contacted support or sales so am unable to rate. The warranty seems to be good as a limited lifetime and 5 year transferable. B&C offered a 1 year warranty on defects which they will repair any defects encountered.

I went steel string acoustic guitar shopping with my daughter with the intention of spending as little as possible, roughly $200. We looked at everything from multiple shops ranging from $100 to $350 as well as a few unaffordable Martins and Taylors just for fun. Everything marked at about $199 or less from Jasmine, Takamine, Olympia, Fender and Yamaha rang with a resounding thud, like rubber bands on a cardboard box. Except for a Johnson priced at $130 which sounded bearable for a beginning guitar (believe it or not), it wasn't until right at about $300 that we heard guitars worth buying. We were relatively satisfied with a Hohner HW645, Yamaha FG04LTD and Alvarez RD20S but all of these were a bit above my target price, at least available locally. The last shop we went to had the Johnson (bearable), the Hohner (nice jangle; bright and loud with incredible projection), and a few Garrisons but I wasn't familiar with the Garrison name.

We were almost ready to give up when the shop owner showed us a glass-fiber frame with an attached neck and headstock. He started to hand it towards me as he pointed at the Garrison guitars and began the description of their technology. I started to laugh, primarily at the naked frame thinking what kind of crap are they selling these days. Needless to say it is truely impressive and does help the sound tremendously, even if the bracing is only supporting the tops in the AG series guitars. Garrison obviously had the last laugh. If lost, destroyed or stolen I would replace it with another one without hesitation. It's a truely incredible guitar for the money. It's one of those purchases that leaves you smiling for weeks.