Here you'll find a few gear reviews by the GuitarNut and a few selected reviewers.  You won't find a lot of reviews because most of the equipment reviewed here is stuff we've owned or at least had an opportunity to test fairly extensively.  While you won't find a lot of gear reviewed here, you will find reviews that are thorough, detailed, and objective.

This isn't an open forum, I only publish reviews from people whose tastes, experience, and (most importantly) motives and objectivity I trust completely.  Public "review bulletin boards" have a tendency to degenerate into either love fests by starry-eyed new owners or forums for the disgruntled and generally cranky.  Such boards certainly have their place and numerous fans and by popular request we'll be adding such a forum here soon.

One thing that I insist on here is objectivity.  I simply won't write or publish a review that I believe is lopsided either in favor of or against a product.  These are not like the reviews you see in most magazines.

• We've all come to realize that most magazine reviews are pretty much inflated to avoid stepping on advertiser's toes.  Do you really think that full page advertisement for "the new Whipsy-Doodle" ended up facing the magazine's review of that very same Whipsy-Doodle purely by coincidence? In almost all cases that advertising space was purchased, and the layout planned, long before the reviewer ever turned in his copy.  If you believe that the reviewer and editor weren't in the least bit influenced by the advertising revenue then I have some beach front property in Arizona that you may be interested in.
• In most traditional print magazines, you can expect that if a reviewer actually mentions even the tiniest problem the product must be a real piece of junk with major flaws because reviewers simply don't criticize products very strongly and editors are even more cautious about letting negative comments see the light of day.  In GuitarNuts reviews you will often find mentions of small flaws – and they really are small flaws.  For example, in most print magazines if you see a mention of an imperfect finish you can expect that the finish was pretty bad to be mentioned at all – mediocre or average finishes simply won't be commented on.  Here, if there are small imperfections in an otherwise great finish we're going to tell you about it and let you decide whether that sort of thing is important or not.
• Most traditional print reviews have to be squeezed onto a printed page where every word takes up space that might be used by another article.  Those writing such reviews aren't given the luxury of describing features in detail.  Often, they quite legitimately feel that it is unfair to a manufacturer to mention a small flaw when they don't have the space to accurately describe the problem and reassure readers about the relative unimportance of a minor flaw.  Here at GuitarNuts we've got plenty of very cheap space so we can chase rabbits to our heart's content.
• In many cases, products reviewed in magazines were sent to the magazine or the reviewer by the manufacturer specifically for review.  Obviously, most manufacturers aren't going to send out the poorest example of their product for review!  In most cases the equipment reviewed here was actually purchased by the reviewer from store stock for his own use – the review is only incidental.  In the few cases where a manufacturer has sent us a product we'll tell you about it and the circumstances under which it was sent (i.e. whether it was sent specifically for a review, sent because the manufacturer was seeking technical assistance or advice or an opinion, and so on).

I don't think I've ever handled a perfect guitar, certainly not one in the under $2000 category, so don't be unduly influenced by mention of minor flaws in these reviews.  This isn't a place where we quiver in fear of advertisers (we ain't got any) and if we say, for example, that there are small file marks on some of the frets it doesn't mean that the frets look like they were installed by a spastic gorilla with a sledgehammer.  The bottom line is that we are going to try to tell you everything we can about a product and let you decide what's important.

Keep in mind that most of the reviews here were based on one sample.  That's also true of most magazine reviews but they usually don't bother to tell you about it.  Also, as mentioned above, their samples are often hand-picked by the manufacturer whereas ours are usually out of store stock.  What all this means is simply that you have to take any review with a "grain of salt." There is a lot variation in the quality of products from some manufacturers.  The sample we reviewed may have been better or worse than the average.  In most cases you can figure that the sample reviewed was at least the best currently available in local stores.

We don't use a numeric rating system here.  It's very tempting to do so, but in the final analysis it's unfair to manufacturers and consumers.  Numeric rating only works reliably if you are doing entirely objective, scientifically measurable, testing.  Numeric rating can be somewhat useful when products are being rated by the same reviewers in side by side testing.  But, the reviews herein are written at different times by reviewers who are human.  The reviewer's tastes, attention, and moods change and the products reviewed two years ago may not even be available for side-by-side comparison with the product being reviewed today.  Under these circumstances any numeric system would be completely bogus and misleading.  Instead, we'll write as much as we can about the product and let you draw your own conclusions.