Second guitar!

So last week, out of impulse or out of plain wanting one, I was on craigslist looking at ads for acoustic guitars. I sent out emails to a few of them and gotten responses, but they were all pretty far away. Saturday, I stopped by the local thrift/consignment store and saw two Epiphone (a division of Gibson, like Lyon is a division of Washburn) guitars. One was an acoustic electric with a tag of $225. The other was a regular acoustic with a tag of $30 (It turned out later it was actually $130, which makes more sense for model). After playing with it for a bit, I bought the regular acoustic for $80.

The guitar was a standard size Epiphone PR-150. There were some dings on it, but it came with a strap. One of the ads I answered online was for the same model for $75.00 no strap. Anyway, the Epiphone is in a black finish with a sunburst design. No pick guard, but I play with no pick anyway. Rosewood neck (no black paint!), spruce top, chrome parts. I brought it home and tuned it up. It sounded dull compared to my Lyon LG1PAK. The 6th string (E) buzzed when I strummed harder on 1st to 3rd frets. Sunday morning I restrung the guitar with the extra strings that came with my Lyon. Sounded better, but the buzzing was still there. So I adjusted the truss rod to loosen the tension a bit. It brought the action higher, but the Lyon guitar had even higher action. I went home a couple times during the day to tune the guitar as the truss rod adjustment slowly settled. The buzzing is a bit better, but I might make one more adjustment to be sure. It does sound much better now.

Meanwhile I lent my Lyon guitar to a friend who is now learning guitar as well. The Lyon guitar served me well. It was rich in sound and held the tuning pretty well. I like to tune once a week or so, and each time, it's minor adjustments. Only thing I didn't like about it was the painted fretboard, which left my fingers and nails black after playing hard. The Epiphone doesn't have the painted neck, so all I'm hoping for is for the buzzing to stop and the tones to be nice as well. So far, the high tones are not as resonant, but the new strings do make a difference.

This Epiphone is still an entry level guitar. I didn't exactly want to put too much money down on a guitar since I don't exactly know how to shop for a nice one yet. But $80.00 for a second guitar is not bad. Just like the Lyon guitar, I won't cry if I damage it, and I definitely would not mind taking it on trips like camping. My next one, which will be further down the road, will be slightly nicer, but I don't foresee myself purchasing anything else too crazy. I'm just not the type to drop $500 - $1,500 on a guitar.