I don’t have much life advice but I do know one thing: Always buy the $200 Yamaha guitar.

If you’re thinking about it, do it. Talk to any guitarist you know who has been playing awhile and they’ll have a story about a $200 Yamaha and how good it sounds relative to the price. It’s with uncanny regularity I encounter fellow travelers with a similar story about this particular cheap guitar.

My $200 Yamaha story growing up was my step-dad’s acoustic. He had two acoustic guitars actually; the Yamaha which stayed out propped against his bedroom wall and another one (I don’t remember the brand) with fancy jade inlays that stayed clasped in the green felt case under his bed. I wasn’t supposed to touch any of his guitars but I would sneak in and noodle on that Yamaha every chance I got. The Yamaha had a notable cheap lacquer “clack” to it when tapping the dreadnaught body and the sound it made when bumping into furniture was always harrowing, but the fretboard was smooth and it produced a sound that was both bright and deep; a surprise given the lightweight materials.

I stole some licks on the fancy under-the-bed acoustic a couple times, but the luxury materials produced a tinny sound with no body or resonance and despite its extra forbidden-ness it wasn’t even worth the trouble digging out of its case. The Yamaha with its casual out-of-the-case-because-I-only-cost-200-dollars vibes was not only easier to access, it was better on all accounts.

Is the $200 Yamaha the best guitar? No, probably not. Is it a great guitar? Emphatically, yes. An impeccable piece of Japanese engineering. I’ve owned $2,000 guitars, played friends’ $4,000 guitars, and the $200 Yamaha gives them all a run for their money every time. Good entry-level acoustic guitars from Martin and Taylor exist in the $500 range and they’re great purchases you won’t regret, but it’s not until the $1500 range that you start getting the material quality bumps those guitars deserve. But once you have a $1500 guitar, you start to baby it and hide it away in the case to protect it from scratches and bumps, from air of the wrong humidity, and from snoopy kids with clumsy hands. This is not a problem with the $200 Yamaha.

We bought a $200 Yamaha last month: a 3/4ths scale travel guitar. We went on a family beach vacation in July and my brother-in-law’s family notified us the day before that the cousins were having a no-device week. Worried our 12yo son would die –kidding, but he appreciates prior warnings about adjustments like this and we weren’t prepared for a fully offline week– we bought the $200 Yamaha to be an offline activity and have zero regrets. He noodled all week long and got noticeably better. Cousins and uncles even got into the mix trading riffs. It sounds phenomenal for a mini-acoustic (like a big acoustic!) but more importantly if it takes a tumble, gets stepped on by a toddler cousin, or filled with sand; we’re not even upset. A perfect travel guitar if there ever was.

Instruments are an intimate and personal item and choosing one can have an Ollivander’s Wand Shop element to it; you must find the one that speaks to you. And it’s up to you to treat yourself accordingly based on your budget. But what I will say is, from a dollar-per-quality or a cost-per-song perspective, you can’t go wrong with the $200 Yamaha.