Yamaha FS700S Grand Auditorium Acoustic Guitar

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Get your hands on a high-quality guitar at an affordable price. Yamaha's FS700S Grand Auditorium acoustic has a smooth, dulcet tone with a strong midrange.

Beginning the long journey of selecting the right kind of guitar can be an arduous task, but Yamaha has made that journey easier with the FS700S Grand Auditorium acoustic guitar. This is the perfect acoustic axe for a beginning guitarist. It boasts a solid spruce-topped body with nato back and sides, a comfortable nato neck, a smooth rosewood fingerboard, 22 frets of comfortable action, and a robust rosewood bridge that'll keep your strings secure and in tune. This unassuming Yamaha acoustic guitar yields a large yet pleasing sound with plenty of sustain and resonance -- for an amazing price!

Finding the Right Acoustic Guitar

There's no one-answer secret to finding the right kind of axe to fit your fingers, and the only way to find what feels and sounds right to you is to get out there and start playing. That being said, there is no reason why your first acoustic guitar has to sacrifice the basic features that make playing and performing an enjoyable experience. Your Yamaha FS700S Grand Auditorium offers comfortable playability, a warm and resonant sound, and appealing looks all on an affordable budget. Once you get your fingers going, your ears will begin to learn to listen for what it is your inner guitarist wants to hear and feel.

Spruce and Nato Body

Spruce is a popular tonewood for the top of acoustic guitars. It is rather resilient to scratches and dings, and its linear grain pattern makes for a charming look. Nato is somewhat similar to mahogany in that it pushes read more the lows and mids in a well balanced fashion. Together, these woods keep your tone ringing with just enough body, mid range, and high end crispness to fill the room.

Nato Neck and Rosewood Fingerboard

Wrap your hand around your Yamaha FS700S Grand Auditorium's comfy yet sturdy nato neck. Each note will harness just enough sustain as your fingers travel up and down this appendage's smooth rosewood fingerboard. All 22 frets have a comfortable action, so your hand and fingertips will start to become more familiar with the fretboard's territory in no time.

Features:

- Affordable acoustic guitar for beginners
- Grand Auditorium body shape yields a big sound
- Solid spruce-topped body
- Nato back and sides
- Comfy nato neck with smooth rosewood fingerboard
- 20 frets with comfortable action
- Sturdy rosewood bridge
- Tortoise-look pickguard
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Specs

Body
Color: NT(Natural)

Finish: Hi-Gloss

Design/Architecture Detail

Body Style: Concert size

Body Depth: 100-120 mm (3 15/16"-4 3/4")

Fingerboard Width (Nut/Body): 43 mm (1 11/16")

Strings Scale: 634 mm (25")

Peg Name: Diecast Chrome

Material

Top: Solid Spruce

Back: Nato

Side/Rib: Nato

Neck: Nato

Fingerboard: Rosewood

Bridge: Rosewood

Pick Guard: Tortoise

For support or warranty questions, please contact the manufacturer:
Phone: 714-522-9011
Web: https://usa.yamaha.com/support

Yamaha FS700S Grand Auditorium Acoustic

The Yamaha FS700S Grand Auditorium Acoustic Guitar has many top shelf features at a remarkable price. With a solid Spruce top, Nato back and sides, and Rosewood fingerboard and bridge, the FS700S yields a smooth, sweet tone with a strong, focused midrange. Yamaha's quality craftsmanship on this acoustic far exceeds other guitars at this price!

Reviewers gave this product an overall rating of 5 out of 5 stars. (1 ratings)
Submitted January 9, 2014 by Steven S in Hillsborough, NJ

"Tested 3 Simultaneously!"

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
I would say my circumstances are unusual and allow me an opportunity to give yet another perspective that mirrors the positive review so many others have provided. The unusual circumstance is that I received three of these guitars when I ordered one as a Christmas present for me using a gift card. This allowed me to literally inspect, set up, assess, play and listen to each guitar back to back to back. I'd like to first commend Yamaha for what I would call impeccable quality control. Now let's discuss the guitars: FINISH: Okay, most everyone reading this knows this guitar is made with a Sitka Spruce top, or sound board as it's technically called. All three guitar tops looked perfect and the finish polished to a nice smooth finish. Two of the guitars were exactly the same color, or shade if you will, while the third was about 10% lighter. Obviously this relates to the actual tree used as it is a clear urethane used by Yamaha that doesn't shade or tint the color at all. This is normal and for those who order via Amazon, you'll get whatever color you get, but trust me, they all looked good due to the use of the Sitka Spruce which is typically reserved for guitars costing way more than this one which is classified as more of a beginners guitar (likely because the wood used for the sides and back of the body and tuner hardware are not "high end" like professional or less "beginner" guitars than this one). That said, the wood is beautiful on all three and just because of my personal read more preference, I kept the guitar with the more blonde color than the other two. Plus it looks identical to an Ovation 12 string I used for years and always loved the color of. As for the sides and body, the finish is buffed to an amazing gloss and the grain and color on all three guitars is as close to being identical as possible. Close examination around the sound hole and rosette around it on all three shows that Yamaha cares about how they finish a guitar as there were no issues whatsoever. Similarly, the binding used between the sides and top is the same high quality on all three. The black of the binding on the sides is buffed perfectly and the binding material on the top is a combination of black and white stripes and being under the urethane is buffed perfectly. This has to be the hardest part of buffing a guitar as any slight variation of pressure, angle, etc. can quickly ruin the edge in several ways. Close examination of all three is again consistently perfect. One guitar had a very, very slight imperfection in the urethane coated edge on the bottom where it rests on your leg when playing in a sitting down position. You almost need a magnifying glass to see it. Yamaha uses a satin finish on the back of the neck to aid in sliding your hand up and down the neck as you play and the finish was again, perfect on all three. One guitar had a slightly two-toned color where the neck joins the body where you could clearly make out the two pieces of wood used to build that particular neck. No big deal, but you couldn't see this on the other two so I thought I'd mention it. The fret board is natural rosewood and the consistency in color and grain between the all three was the same and the transition between top and back of the neck was perfect on all. The headstock is also a high gloss finish and impeccable on all three and likely gets a couple more coats of urethane for increased shine. The inlays, both on the fret board and the headstock are fitted and finished consistently across all three. The Yamaha wording on the headstock is about perfect with a nice pearl look. The fret board markers are smaller than I would have liked (from a looks perspective) but serve their purpose, again a nice pearl look and again consistently applied with no edges or gaps and perfectly flush. I'll end the discussion about finish by saying that the plastic pick guard looks the same on all three and although plastic, looks pretty exotic and could be brown tortoise for real. HARDWARE: The tuning pegs (machine heads) may not be the priciest but are better quality than most any guitar at this price. They are chromed metal and utilize an internal spring that can be manually tensioned and are designed to keep the pressure consistent as the internal gearing wears over time. Having tuned all three guitars, I can say I can find no difference and looking closely can say the chroming, finish and installation is as good as it can be. The bridge is also rosewood, and like the fret board does not have a finish over it and is left natural. Here, the color and grain as well as the application is consistent between all three, no issues whatsoever and very closely matching the fret board. The frets themselves were the same on all three with no buzzing or other issues, everything aligned and installed perfectly. I can't speak of what the fret metal material is, but it seems the same to me on these guitars as guitars costing several thousand dollars. There may be more exotic material available and used, but I have no issue with what Yamaha used and can't think of why a different material than this would have any effect on play-ability. The strings are Yamaha FS50BT and brass wound, no rust and light 012 - .052 gauge. Out of 18 strings, not one showed any sign of an imperfection and in playing, no real difference. I'll likely upgrade to my brand of choice but not until I use these up, they're pretty good for stock strings. The nut, saddle and bridge pins are, as expected, plastic. Many report that changing these out for bone (cow, buffalo, ivory for example) improves the sound of this guitar. I would expect the sound to be affected by this, or even different plastic types that could be used stock, but can't say since I've not played or heard one with a bone or tusk upgrade or even better strings. I'll likely upgrade to bone at the first string change since it isn't cost prohibitive even for this class of guitar if you can do it yourself (less than $30 on eBay). SETUP: As expected, the strings are detuned by several octaves for shipping, but still have enough pressure to keep the neck from warping while it goes through its' storage, packaging and shipping process. Tuning each, I found the strings are pretty well pre-stretched and only took a few re-tunings to get them to stay in tune. The truss rod on other guitars I've bought were loose by design, with the expectation by the factory that the end user or guitar shop will snug them up and/or adjust the neck once delivered. In looking through Yamaha's owner's manual, there is a short blurb about how to correct a convex or concave condition by adjusting the truss rod, but no mention of having to do anything for first setup if the neck is straight, implying it is already snug and/or adjusted by Yamaha before shipping. I checked all three guitars and not one had a convex or concave condition to correct so I've yet to put an allen wrench to the truss rod to check. That's a good thing. To be correct, there should be a slight convex shape (forward bow) and checking all three guitars, they were correct as delivered with only a few thousandths of an inch difference between the three. I'll check the truss rod on the guitar I'm keeping but suspect it's already been set by the factory. PLAYABILITY/SOUND: You can read many of the other reviews on here and determine that this "beginner" guitar doesn't really sound or play like one. Although the sides and back are made of plywood to keep the cost down, the most important part, the sound board, or top, is made of the preferred Sitka Spruce wood. So with the unique opportunity to have three of the exact same guitar in my house to play with gave me a chance to pick the cream of the crop, so to speak. Well, I'm happy to report, if not a tiny bit surprised, there is no discernible difference in sound between the three guitars. I had three people sit across the room (one a far more advanced player than I) while I played the same chord sequence, switching as quickly as I could between the three, and my listeners couldn't hear a difference! So much for my picking a "best sounding" one as each sounded excellent as well as the same. I too can report that I was quite surprised by how good these guitars sound overall. I don't have access to numerous multi-thousand dollar guitars to compare this Yamaha against but have a good enough ear to know they really do sound significantly better than the price would imply. Tone is very nice, high, mid and low tones are above average although sustain is a tad less than on some very expensive guitars I've tried. I do have a Johnson beginner's guitar in the house and can say there is no comparison; the Yamaha is so pointedly better sounding, the two are not even in the same class if you ask me. As for the action, it is a tad high for my preferences but not too high, even for beginners; I will adjust that when I replace the saddle and bring it as low as possible before any string buzz occurs. Having said that, these all played the same which is to say, nice and easy. If I didn't know the price on these, I'd probably pick one just based on how easy they are on the fingers along with their great sound. I guess that's why so many praise this guitar and call it the "best beginner's guitar out there". My many times more expensive Ovation doesn't have better action than these Yamaha's. I consider that important and amazing. CONCLUSION: If you are a beginner, get this guitar! If you are a seasoned pro looking for an affordable guitar to use where you might not want to use your high priced guitar, get this guitar! If you are looking to buy a guitar and get a chance to test one at your local guitar shop, please do. And while there, try any other guitar in the same price range and even several at three times the price and see what you think. I think you'll buy this one. In closing and what made me take the initiative to write this, Yamaha's quality control is again, beyond reproach. Not one of the three guitars had anything wrong that would give me a reason not to keep it. All three were keepers and my decision on which one to keep came down to one of the three having a lighter shade of spruce. You may have preferred one of the other two, it's really only my personal preference as to why chose the lighter shade. I should say all three are light, just one was a bit lighter than the other two. Other than that, the sides, back, neck and headstock were all about the same color/shade and the minor difference on one, as I stated, was the two wood shades on the neck where it joins the body. Hardly a concern, just wanted to point it out. In case you couldn't tell, I'm so happy I did my homework, watched numerous YouTube reviews and chose this Yamaha. Buy it; you'll be happy you did! Search YouTube for the FG700S and you'll get good, honest critique and input (along with praise) on this guitar and can also hear it in action.

Musical Background:
Playing guitar for 30+ years. Played coronet and tuba in band and picked up guitar at around 18 years of age.

Musical Style:
My preference is rock, but I play acoustic guitar and tend to play mellow music. I can't explain why other than to say I didn't
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