Review : Yamaha FG800J - The Best Starter Acoustic I Have Found
Seeking a superb acoustic guitar for a new or intermediate player that sound great and is super inexpensive? Look no further than the Yamaha FG800J.
The Quest
As you may have noticed, I have been reviewing instruments and related gear that I find of excellent quality and having a reasonable cost of entry because not everyone can afford or wants to spend thousands of hard to earn dollars on guitars and related kit. So I consulted with my good friends at The Arts Music Store. I had reviewed a decent enough Fender acoustic in the $350 range a couple of years back, and was willing to go into the $600 range for something that I thought would be better built, sound better and have better playability. Store manager Ryan asked how open minded I was once he understood the goal, an excellent starter / intermediate guitar at a fair price that would sound great, have great playability and would last a long time.
I’ve known Ryan for longer than he’d likely care to remember and he has been a guest co-host on the podcast. He knows his stuff and he knows what makes customers happy. So I let him tell me what I should do a review on. He also understands that I want instruments right out of the box that no one has taken time to check over or make minor fixes to. That’s a foreign concept to him, because that store checks over every instrument personally before it leaves the store, a sadly rare scenario and a reason that I shop there.
The Yamaha FG800J
I have known of Yamaha products for decades. I have owned two different Yamaha classical guitars and when I had the opportunity to evaluate the Revstar Standard last year, thought that is was a great instrument for the spend. I was comfortable and have previously recommended Yamaha acoustic guitars to clients and friends. I was a bit surprised when he took down the FG800J and played it a bit. It has its own sound, rich and warm as you would expect from a dreadnought sized body but without the grumpiness and mud found in guitars in the $500 range frequently and definitely not what I would ever expect from any acoustic guitar that sells for $319.99 CAD MAP. No, that’s not a typo, it really is priced at about $320 and in my opinion right then, I thought it sounded better than a Martin DX2 priced nearly three times higher. Ok, Ryan, let’s go with this one and see what we can learn.
Specifications
The FG800J is assembled in China. That does not immediately mean shoddy construction as I have found many guitars made in China to be superbly crafted particularly when you know that they are being built to deliver under a very low cost ceiling. The top is solid Spruce and taps out very sonorously. The back and sides are a laminate of Mahogany and Nato. As many custom builders charging over $10K for their instruments use laminate sides and back, I don’t worry about that so long as the guitar sounds good., and a laminate sides and back instrument is going to tolerate temperature and humidity issues better anyway. In this scenario, Nato is a sales name for a South American wood called Mora. Nato is also a commonly used sales name for an Asian wood called Nyatoh, popular with companies such as Ibanez, but research tells me that in the case of Yamaha, Nato means Mora. Both are fine instrument woods, with good rot resilience and hardness. Yamaha does not specify the neck wood, but based on information from my wood resource library, I am going to assume that it is also Mora. If anyone from Yamaha knows better, please reach out and correct me. The fingerboard is rosewood as is the bridge. Very impressive considering that makers of guitars costing over five times the price use Richlite for fingerboards which is basically dyed and compressed paper pulp. The tuners are sealed chrome units and work very smoothly. I am guessing that the nut is plastic as is the saddle. Again at $320 I expect no more, especially when much more expensive “label” guitars use the same material. The sides have a plain black binding where they connect to the top and the back. The top also has a three line purfling inside the binding that matches the rosette inlay. There is a faux tortoiseshell scratchplate on the front.
Construction
As I have noted the externals are superbly done, but it is often inside a guitar where we find some level of lack of attention and even sloppiness. So I used my endoscope for my iPhone to go inside the sound hole to snap a few pics of what I could see. I’m pretty impressed. Left to right we start with the kerfing used to connect the back and side. You see clean work with no glue seepage. Second are the holes for the bridge pins. Spruce tears out pretty readily and while we can tell that brad point bits were not used, the holes are clean. The final image is of the carved braces which reduce weight while providing stability. They are all cleanly cut and finished. This is very decent work, better than one would expect of a guitar in this price range, and to be open, I have seen uglier work coming out of an unnamed factory in Montana.
Playability
I admit that at this price point, I expect the neck to need some adjustment and that I would need to do some work on the fret ends. My luthier’s straightedge confirms that the neck is perfect and there is no fret sprout. I’ve had to do work on much more expensive “label” guitars that were in a much worse state than this Yamaha which was perfect right out of the box. The nut slots were perfectly cut, which makes that F Major barre chord that many players despise very easy to play. The action was measured as 5/64 on the low E and 4/64 on the high E. I checked the frets with my fret rocker and none were high or low. The strings are not labeled and are likely 80/20 bronze. They have held tune very well, and given that I did not have to stretch them, likely came pre stretched from the factory. They were also very clean, with no grime or corrosion. The frets are medium tall so not too wide or too narrow or so tall as to cause a fretted note to go sharp if the player is pressing really hard. The guitar is very easy to play with a light fretting hand, making it idle for players who do not have grizzly bear strength hands.
It is a dreadnought style body, but is a bit smaller than some other dreadnoughts. This means that the reach and comfort for a smaller person will be excellent. I am not a small person and I did not find that it felt cramped in any way either. Fit for most anyone, is really excellent.
As I never play any guitar without a strap, I would recommend that when you buy yours, should you do so, as your proper guitar shop to install a strap pin on the neck heel. There isn’t one as the guitar comes and while you can play it using the old western style tie-off at the headstock, this tends to push the body past your comfort position. I did it that way for this review, but if it were mine, a strap pin would be installed immediately.
This is a simple guitar. It has no electronics in it. Given that the pickups in guitars costing hundreds and even thousands more are commonly piezo based, I consider this a good thing. If the player ends up needing a pickup, getting a K&K Sound Pure Mini would be inexpensive and sound better than ANY piezo. it’s not an at home job, but a decent guitar technician can do it efficiently and without marking the guitar up very inexpensively. I know from personal experience that both Brandon and Kevin at The Arts Music Store have done tons of these installs.
Audio Samples
I wanted to keep things as simple as possible for this short sample, which consists of a short chord section followed by the Major chords starting from E up to D. I recorded the instrument with a single Aston Origin microphone about six inches away from where the neck meets the body. The Aston ran into a Clarett+ 8Pre Studio Interface and that was recorded directly into Logic Pro. As I always do when recording acoustic guitars, I use an Avalon VT737-sp preamp / compressor. A screenshot of the settings is provided below.
Good To Go Kit
When getting started or even upgrading, there is often more to the success than just the guitar, so I have decided to include a Good To Go recommendation kit. For this guitar, here’s my kit list.
Yamaha FG800J
Humidifier - All acoustic guitars should have a humidifier. If you keep the guitar in the case, the Oasis units are very good as are the Music Nomad options. However, if you keep the guitar on a stand or out of the case, you want a humidifier that covers the sound hole. These are a bit harder to find, but they do exist and personally I prefer them. Note that all humidifiers require maintenance, you need to check and refill them weekly using distilled water. A humidifier goes a long way to prevent wood cracking, warping and twisting With heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer ripping humidity out of the air and knowing that a guitar likes to be between 40% and 60% relative humidity, a humidifier is really a must have.
Gig Bag - Hard cases are terrific until you actually want to take them anywhere. Unless you are in a band on the road, in which case a regular hard case won’t do the job, a well padded gig bag is ideal. In my experience, the Profile or house name bags are better built with more functionality than the guitar maker’s bag. Many guitars these days do not include a gig bag. Make sure that there are pockets for your tuner, any tools that came with the guitar, like the truss rod wrench, space for the whammy if the guitar has it, and a set of spare strings, and a string winder / trimmer.
Guitar Stand - Hercules make the best stands but you can often get a house brand that will hold the guitar when it is not in its case and you are not holding it
Guitar Strap - Every guitar needs a strap and every player, even sitting. should use a strap. Gravity always works and a strap will save your guitar at some point. Lots of choices exist. Avoid fabric straps where the edges are sharp which hurts, Seat belt material is cheap, but the edges can be rough. I recommend real leather that has suede on the inside, which helps rein in instruments that are neck heavy. I do not like the fake leather or “vegan” straps as they are hot and sticky vinyl and develop an “interesting” aroma. My favourite straps come from Walker and Williams, but Levy’s and D’Addario do some decent products, although I find that they can be overpriced in my opinion.
Tuner - No guitar is complete without a tuner that goes with it all the time. Pedal tuners are great, but every player needs an in case tuner, and the Snark tuners are hard to beat. I prefer the cheaper models that take clock batteries as for the difference in price to the rechargeable unit, you can order a sheet of batteries from Amazon, or you may find a card of them in the shop from D’Addario priced very reasonably.
String Changing Tool - The D’Addario tools are great. One tool has a string winder, a string cutter and a bridge pin puller. Every guitarist needs this as every guitarist should learn to change his or her own strings. It’s not hard, and that quality guitar shop might even offer a free session on how to do string changes efficiently that you can attend live. Also, there will be about a zillion YouTube videos on the subject.
Wrap Up
To be blunt, I was blown away by how great this ostensibly “cheap” guitar sounds and plays. I would say that it is a deal at $600 and an incredible choice at $319.99 The Yamaha brand is trustworthy, but you aren’t getting reamed by a label tax. The instrument is very well built, sounds awesome and plays great. Seriously folks, you cannot go wrong with this guitar, BUT you are always advised to by any instrument from a professional music shop that has a reputation for quality of service and ongoing customer care. I do not get compensated in any way for my work, and I encourage you to check out The Arts Music Store. The physical store is great, and they sell and ship Canada wide. If you are in the United States, be comfortable calling my buddy James Ridings at Sweetwater.
Thanks for reading and supporting the channel. If you are not subscribed, please do so. If you are not listening to the podcasts, please do so. Submit any questions or comments, I read and respond to all. I’m Ross Chevalier and I wish you peace and health.
