Most disappointing guitar you ever bought?

[M19]

Walnut/Cedar Wee Lowden. I was probably expecting too much. Wee was an apt tonal description IMO.

[Mrbirdog]

Long ago and far away in a distant land I was an idiot. Here is a hint, the guitar's name starts with a "Z" My counselor was impressed with how quickly I worked through the ordeal. It started with purchasing a Martin and that set me on the road to recovery.

[Dut4907]

Didn’t buy it persay..

Stupidly traded my Taylor DN4 for a Martin Custom D Rosewood.

It was a very quiet guitar.

[Jobe]

I think I have mentioned this before but I will mention it again. Fair warning to young players. I walked into our local music shop and noticed a really nice looking Yamaha. She sounded a bit dull but I figured that she was so pretty she must be good! Must be bad acoustics in this music shop. I was smitten by her looks and I bought her. Well, she never got better. Ahhh. I never could get attached to her and we parted ways. Never judge a book by its' cover. Lesson learned. My foul.

[Uflatpick]

I had to sell my Martin D12-20, to stay afloat, in 75. I picked up an Aspen 6 string just to have something. It sounded ok, but not great. I soon stopped playing all together. After almost 20 years, I moved to PA, where I discovered the mountain dulcimer. I started learning that, and was soon playing the guitar again. Found my Aspen had a serious belly bow. So I built a support under the bridge. That kept it playable, but knew I wanted another decent guitar to play with the dulcimer group. Sold the Aspen to a beginner when I found a nice used Guild. The Guild jumbo was just the thing for backing up the dulcimer group.

[dnf777]

Had a Seagull S6 that I loved the feel of, and the sound a little less, but for what I could afford at the time, I thought it was a great guitar. Until the neck twisted, rendering it unplayable. I didnt have time or funds for any type of repair (if even possible) so I salvaged a few parts off it and said fare thee well...

[birkenweg42]

A '76 Martin 000-28. It was a cool looking guitar with a nicely tanned spruce top and dark rosewood back and sides. It sounded like a bunch of socks had been stuffed down the soundhole.
I found out later that a few Martins built in the '70s had the same issue.

[Trawlerman]

A Martin 00015 . Gorgeous guitar in it's simplicity. I just didn't like the all hog sound coming from spruce/hog Martin. I wanted so much to like the guitar, but it just wasn't for me.

[Coop47]

All online "deals"

2011 Gibson LP Jr. Special DC - Pickguard was misaligned
2012 Gibson LP Jr. Special DC - (its replacement) most unstable neck I've ever played

2017 Gibson J45 - Beautiful guitar, dead sounding no matter what I tried.

[poopsidoo]

Originally Posted by NotveryGood

This has no doubt been asked before (as most things have by now), but what was the most disappointing guitar you ever had? (I don't really mean those unplayable cheap laminated banana neck "instruments" we were sometimes given when we began, because it would be no surprise that they were no good).
I mean the guitar you looked forward to owning and paid good money for, but somehow was not as good as you had hoped or expected ? And what didn't you like?

Back in 1980 I was managing a music store in Boone NC. When I came back from lunch one day, my salesman told me “you just missed Doc Watson”. He told me Doc came on, tried some guitars and played a used Aria Pro II that we had. My sales man said Doc left saying what a good sounding guitar it was. That was enough for me and I bought it. I loved telling people Doc had played it. But later I got used to the sound, which I felt was sort of muddy and not inspiring, and I traded it for a used Guild D-40C.

[fitness1]

Probably 10 years ago I bought a Larrivee C-72 presentation Brazilian......it was "deader than a doornail" as my Gramps used to say.

I was expecting a LOT more!

[fartamis]

A Taylor 114ce. .. it is a guitar without depth without emotion it is really anemic ... and even with old strings and a nylon pick of 0.88 mm the sound is as shrill as church bells. Have all made mistakes in life but still can't figure out how I got to buy this guitar ... I must have been in a diminished emotional state. It has been collecting dust for several months in my closet while I decide to sell it.

[Steve DeRosa]

• Gibson Mark 35 - one of the best playing acoustic guitars I ever owned, pounded it to death but it never opened up tonally
• Garrison G-50 - similar story
• Ovation Ultra GP - $200 '80s rock machine that I never really bonded with, worth $2500-3000 today
• Guild JF-4NT - probably the quietest 17" jumbo I've ever played, found out that while playability was excellent the neck geometry was all wrong
• Gibson ES-135 - a mid-90s ebony beauty, played well but the too-polite-for-their-own-good P-100 stacked soapbars lacked both the chime of P-90's and the drive of humbuckers
• Gretsch 5123B - medium-scale predecessor of the current 5440 long-scale "6120 bass," this one had a myriad of annoying little problems that eventually caused me to sell it in total frustration, in spite of the fact that it sounded incredible on those occasions when it decided to behave
• Epiphone Ultra 339 - also fraught with annoying little problems, compounded by a neck profile that seems to have been designed around the hand anatomy of a chimpanzee, and if the pickups didn't sound so good I would've ditched it long ago

[Skip Ellis]

Taylor 614 - beautiful guitar but sounded terrible - no bottom end at all. I've had other maple guitars that sounded decent - this one wasn't even close.

[Lwilliams]

Back in 1995 I bought a Washburn D28S. I tried so hard to like that guitar. It never worked out. Sold it and moved on. I won't go back to that brand again.