The 2000 Golden Axe Awards
Guitar Best Value Division
By Cliff Suttle
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March 1, 2000 - Welcome to the first ever Golden Axe Best Value Guitar Awards. Hopefully you have already checked out the Golden Axe Unlimited Guitar Awards and found those interesting. The Best Value division was created this year to honor guitars in a different class than the Unlimited division. The Best Value is simply that - a great instrument for the money. Does this mean that all the guitars here are going to be low cost entry level instruments? No, not at all. What we were looking for in this division was value. Playability, tone, workmanship, and cost were the main judging criteria. The most expensive guitar in the Best Value division is $2,740. The lease expensive is $428. All amounts in this article are in U.S. dollars. Please keep in mind that these are list prices. The street value of these instruments maybe quite a bit less at your local music store.
Guitars have come a long way in the past ten years. New manufacturing techniques are allowing manufacturers to produce high quality instruments at a low cost. Compared to the instruments I could have bought as a teenager, these instruments are dream machines. I would like to compliment the entire guitar industry for the improvements they have made in the last decade and congratulations to all the finalists.
Here are the rules under which the contest was judged:
- The guitar had to be present at the NAMM show. No pictures or late entries were allowed.
- The instrument had to be a normal production model. No special, or one-of-a-kind items were allowed.
- Each company could only submit one instrument per division.
- Any model which was a former Golden Axe Finalist from prior years was excluded from the contest. However, companies could enter other models from their line which did not win previously.
When you're viewing the finalists, please keep in mind that a better guitar could finish lower in the finals than a lesser instrument. Remember that this is Best Value, and price is factored quite heavily in our decisions.
Well, enough chatting, here they are:
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