The Ultimate Yamaha F335 Acoustic Guitar Review

April 30, 2017
/ Acoustic Guitars
/ By Danny Trent

If you’ve ever heard the name Yamaha, you probably associate it with their boats or motorcycles. A lot of people don’t know that Yamaha also makes instruments and have been for 60 years.

Some of Yamaha’s instruments are sworn on by experts; on the other hand, some of their instruments are aimed more towards beginning players.

The Specifications of the Yamaha F335

Let’s get into talking about the specifications of the Yamaha F335! Please keep in mind that this a beginner’s guitar that’s at an affordable price range, so you shouldn’t be expecting solid mahogany tops with mahogany fingerboards on this instrument.

This is a full dreadnought body that comes with a laminated spruce top, meranti back, and meranti sides. As for the neck, the Yamaha F335 comes with a Rosewood fingerboard, a Rosewood bridge, twenty total frets, but fourteen of those frets are completely accessible.

The Pros and Cons

My favorite part of this guitar is the Tortoiseshell pickguard, but I also love how Yamaha added gold die-cast tuners. If you are looking for this to be a guitar that performs at a high-quality level at a budget price range, you should look elsewhere. This is a really, really inexpensive guitar that isn’t the best quality guitar on the market, but it is a sturdy build.

The top of the guitar is spruce, which is an expensive wood that’s sturdy and takes a lot of abuse before leaving dents or damage on the instrument. The meranti wood on the sides and back of the guitar is a cheap wood too; the meranti feels like plastic.

As someone who has experience playing with ‘luxury’ guitars, the plastic feel to the meranti may be unpleasant to experienced players.

My least favorite part of the Yamaha F335 guitar is the finish. The laminate that Yamaha used on the guitar makes the wood feel fake and plastic. All of the imperfections that are found on the guitar have been filled in with extra amounts of laminate, which also takes away from the overall feel and look of the guitar.

If you are a beginner who doesn’t care much about the cosmetic appearance of your guitar, the Yamaha F335 shouldn’t bother you too much. Actually, there are several color options that buyers can choose from. The color options are:

Natural color: this guitar is $10 more expensive than the other two options. The natural color also comes with a Mahogany neck.
Solid black; the fretboard, top wood, and neck are unaltered to the original build of the guitar.
Tobacco brown sunburst; this color uses nato wood instead of meranti that is used on the original guitar

The action on the Yamaha F335 is also incredibly high; even as an experienced musician, my wrist started developing pain even just trying to strum a few chords. I definitely feel like Yamaha ignored the fact that new players need to have lower action, just to build up tolerance to manipulating their wrists.

This guitar doesn’t project sound very well and laminated wood is to blame for this. With the F335, notes are the lost in the laminate and sound very muddy. While you can play chords on this guitar, don’t expect to be able to pick out certain notes when you’re playing.

Everything that is played on this guitar mushes together; if you’re a beginning guitarist without any musical experience, I wouldn’t suggest this guitar. Beginning guitarists won’t be able to develop a musical ear while playing.

If you’re looking to mainly play just for yourself, practice with your guitar, play in a small band, or play in a small venue, the Yamaha F335 is just the guitar for you. This is a great guitar to use if you’re looking for a spare guitar that’s inexpensive and has a decent quality, especially when compared to the price.

Pros of the Yamaha F335:

Reliable
Great to use for personal playing
Stays in tune for long period of times
Affordable
Comes with a limited lifetime warranty

Cons of the Yamaha F335:

Doesn’t come included with a case
Feels uncomfortable to play
Feels cheap
Since it does come from Japan, this guitar has questionable quality
Doesn’t come with an electronic amplifier
Doesn’t come with nylon strings
Has the label of being a beginner’s guitar. If you’re an intermediate or advanced player, I would not suggest this guitar to you.
Doesn’t have a lot of versatility to it. This guitar is really only good for personal, private use.

Alternative guitars to consider:

Yamaha FG800 Solid Top Acoustic Guitar

If you’re looking for a Yamaha guitar that has better reviews in the guitar world, the Yamaha FG800 is the way to go. You can choose to either have the size of the guitar to be dreadnought or concert style. There are several different body types you can choose to have on your guitar, as well as different color selections.

This guitar is a bit more expensive than the Yamaha F335, but it is better quality and produces a better sound compared to the F335.

Larrivee D-40 Legacy Dreadnought Mahogany Natural Acoustic Guitar

This guitar is way more expensive than the Yamaha F335, as it’s around $1,500 (check this listing for the latest live prices). As to be expected, the sound quality of this guitar is exponentially better than the F335.

This guitar has a Sitka spruce top that comes with mahogany sides and back, as well as a single piece mahogany neck. Mahogany makes guitars sound much better than laminated wood.

Conclusion

While there are a lot of guitars on the market that are better than the Yamaha F335, this guitar isn’t a terrible investment to make if you’re just looking for a guitar to start out with. If you’re a professional guitarist, you’re going to look down on this guitar.

On the other hand, if you’re someone who doesn’t have much experience playing guitar, this is the perfect starting guitar for you! While this isn’t a perfect instrument, it’s not horrendous either. If you’re just looking at the cost alone when comparing this guitar, this really is a good guitar.

That’s it for today’s review of the Yamaha F335! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading.