Lauren LA30N 30-Inch Student Guitar Reviews

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $89.99
Sale Price: $45.58
Today's Bonus: 49% Off

I bought this for my younger son. I've been playing for 20+ years and remembered that the nylon string guitars were easier on the fingers. Because there's no value in turning my son off to music, this feature is important. (Another reviewer points out that it doesn't stay in tune; that's true, but if memory serves, it should get better over time as they stretch).

When compared to other units, this is great. The finish is nice. It sounds nice, too (although my fingers are too big!!) My particular guitar is a classical style and the tuners are adequate. I may or may not work on it a bit more as other reviewers have but mine is pretty darn good, right out of the box. The only issue is the low E can bounce off the first fret but that's only if you're trying to make that happen. Or playing like Mr. Townsend, I suppose.

UPDATE: We gave this to my son at Christmas. It's now March and the nylon strings have largely stabilized; they aren't going out of tune nearly as much. I should point out that more frequent tunings would likely shorten this waiting period significantly; I may have tuned it 5 times since Christmas (my son isn't at the point where he cares about pitch). Even so, I think the trade-off (ease of playing vs. tuning issues) is worth it.

CLARIFICATION (7-18-2012): There seems to be some confusion about nylon strings vs. steel strings. Nylon strings are either entirely nylon (or, for the lower pitched strings, a nylon core with a metal wound exterior). Steel strings are made of, well, steel with the lower pitched strings including an additional metal wound exterior. The tension required to produce a given pitch is much less with nylon. Because the tension is higher with steel, guitars constructed for use with steel strings have (or should have) different structural characteristics to support the greater forces. For this reason, one should not put steel strings on a guitar made for nylon (there are other reasons, too). Moreover, nylon inherently changes its structure in a way that causes it to lose some tension over time, particularly when first installed. This is the primary reason why they go out of tune more often and when new. On the other hand, steel strings are both smaller in diameter and have the aforementioned higher tension, so the force required to push down on the strings is both higher and over less area making for more stress on the fingers. In my opinion, nylon strings are better for kids because I can mitigate the tuning issues easier than the discomfort.

NOTE (7-18-2012): In general, if there are long slots in the head (the top) with the tuning machine knobs pointing to the back, it's a "classical guitar" and has nylon strings. If the head is smooth with the tuning machine knobs off to the side, it's for steel strings.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

My son just turned 4 and he loves this guitar! My husband has many guitars and has been playing for years and he thinks this is a good one too. Seems like good quality, nice nylon strings that work just like real ones, and the perfect size for my son.

Best Deals for Lauren LA30N 30-Inch Student Guitar

My 8 year old loves this guitar! She had a steel string guitar that he played on occasionally, but her time with it was always short, as the strings hurt her fingers. Not so with this nylon-stringed beauty! She is able to 'play' longer, and more comfortably.

'play' as she/we are still learning... :)

It is well constructed, and well worth the price. Nylon strings will stretch more, so they will require frequent tunings for a while, but will settle out eventually.

Would definately recommend as a kids' guitar! (up to teenagerthen a 36", or so, is a better fit)

Honest reviews on Lauren LA30N 30-Inch Student Guitar

I thought that this would be a good guitar for someone I know who has small hands. It isn't bad in general, but we have had one problem with it. It refuses to stay in tune long enough to play more than one song. And the tuning pins seems to slip a little. It must be tuned so frequently that this has become rather frustrating. Perhaps it just needs more time for the strings to settle in, but my other guitars are not this difficult to keep in tune. If you can deal with the tuning problem, I guess it would be a good beginner's guitar. For what I paid for it, I guess you can't complain. I suppose you could say that it's good for a beginner to have to do frequent tuning and that way he learns very quickly the notes of each open string! Just be aware that if you would be frustrated by frequent tuning, this one may not be for you.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Lauren LA30N 30-Inch Student Guitar

I bought this for my six year old daughter, knowing that it was probably a decent guitar body with cheap hardware ( and knowing a little about tweaking guitars helped too ) i got this this for cheap. the reviews are pretty much right on, it has trouble staying in tune and for the last few weeks has been lying in the corner, silent. It sounded really muted and cruddy, like it had tissues stuffed inside of it. Well, I knew eventually i would get around to seeing what can be done for very little money to make this thing sound better. First thing i did was to swap out the tuners with the lowest cost gotoh I could get online, (pretty decent tuner for seventeen bucks) and got rid of the loose floppy apperatus that was supposed to be doing the job of holding the strings in tune. I did have to drill out the pegholes to enlarge them a fraction of an inch, for the new tuners to fit, spacing was the same but the new pegs were a tad fatter. just a little, used a hand drill and a 3/8 bit. I also swapped out the el cheapo factory strings with some already broken in d'addario's from my yamaha classical. While i had it torn down, remedied the high action with a saddle sanding and a little filing on the zero fret. Yep, it has a zero fret, not a prob. After getting the action where i thought best i tuned it up and i must say it sounds like a completlely different instrument that it did before. Buy it and use the net to learn how to set it up right. Sounds pretty awesome now.