Best Electric Guitar Brand (our top pick)
PRS SE models
The PRS electric guitar brand, particularly the SE series, is one of the best and highest-value lines of electric guitars we can recommend. For almost all skill levels and styles, they're consistently one of the most reliable options at reasonable price points.
What are the best electric guitar brands that you should target when buying?
Regardless of the marketplace (Sweetwater, Amazon, Musician's Friend etc.), there are reliable brands that we recommend focusing on and sticking with, particularly for the beginner and intermediate skill levels.
On this page we'll highlight those brands and tell you why we recommend them, to give you a quick filter as you shop for a new electric guitar.
Read more: Best electric guitars overall
Top Four Electric Guitar Brands
We'd break the best electric guitar brands into tiers, with a top tier containing four brands and then an honorable mentions section with four more, giving us eight total.
The top four brands are far and away our favorite to recommend, and we'll cover each of them here individually.
They include PRS, Gibson, Fender, and Epiphone.
1. PRS (main and SE lines)
While PRS mainline guitars are typically very expensive, the SE and S2 lines are far more affordable, giving us some of the highest value electric guitars in existence. In particular, the PRS SE Custom 24 is one of our favorite electric guitar recommendations.
With the cheaper SE lines, PRS has made itself accessible to a much wider range of budgets and is easily our favorite electric guitar brand to recommend.
Read the full review: PRS SE Custom 24
2. Gibson
Like PRS, Gibson guitars also tend to be fairly expensive. However, they offer several guitar lines that are more affordable and accessible to lower budgets. If you want to buy a Gibson electric guitar, look at the following series:
- Les Paul Studio
- Les Paul Junior
- Les Paul Tribute
- SG Standard
These four options can get you the iconic Gibson brand name for around $1000 or lower if you buy used. Despite the expense, there's no denying that Gibson is one of the most influential and iconic brands in the electric guitar universe.
Read more: Gibson Les Paul Tribute VS Studio
3. Fender
Another household name in the electric guitar community, Fender is responsible for two of the most popular electric guitars in existence: The Stratocaster and Telecaster. And unlike Gibson and PRS, Fender guitars tend to cater to a much wider price range and are not as commonly expensive.
Fender Strats and Teles can be had for as low as $600 to $700, or as high as $2000 to $3000 depending on what you're looking for and which series you're buying from.
Whenever you're thinking about buying an electric guitar, Fender should at least be on your radar, especially if you're looking for something bluesy and crisp with single coil pickups.
Read more: Best Fender Stratocaster
4. Epiphone
Epiphone is a subsidiary of Gibson, though with a large following and unique brand presence that's all their own (they actually used to be a separate company). But under the Gibson banner they make a ton of Les Paul and SG electric guitars that are made to mirror the more expensive models.
They're kind of like the PRS SE line compared to the mainline PRS models.
We recommend Epiphone guitars for beginners and intermediate players who like the Gibson style, but don't want to pay Gibson prices.
Read more: Epiphone VS Gibson Les Paul
Honorable Mentions
Underneath the four in this top tier, we have some well-respected brands that are a little more niched down in their appeal, catering to a more specific playing style. This means our top brands are going to be the most accommodating to the widest range of styles and players, while our honorable mention brands are going to focus on specific styles and types of guitar playing.
5. Ibanez
Ibanez guitars are popular with modern rock, technical players, and speedsters. Their guitars cover an incredibly wide range of pricing, from just a couple hundred dollars all the way up to several thousand.
If you're into speedier and more technical playing styles, the edgy, hard-rock style of Ibanez could be a great fit for you.
Ibanez guitars are built for speed and heavier playing styles.
6. Gretsch
Gretsch guitars are typically semi-hollow body and often utilize a larger body shape. They're popular in a lot of different styles, but sought out particularly in jazz and styles where you play through a lot of clean tones. They're also popular in Christian worship and church bands.
Read more: Best electric guitars for worship and church
7. Jackson
Like Ibanez, Jackson caters to the hard rockers among us, with several big-name signature models including Metallica's Kirk Hammett. As a brand, they're not as widespread as the others mentioned on this list, but still popular in the metal and hard rock genres, perhaps on the more vintage and classic side of metal.
8. Squier
Squier is the econ brand for Fender, which has made them one of the best selling guitar brands in the world. Yet, they aren't in our top recommendation section because they tend to be only beginner guitars, with limited applicability in other contexts. We do like them for beginners, but would probably direct buyers elsewhere who fall outside of that scope.
Read more: Best beginner electric guitars
What makes a great electric guitar brand?
The best electric guitar brands do a few things really well:
- Consistently produce high-quality electric guitars
- Produce guitars that have a wide range of style and skill applicability
- Accommodate a wide range of pricing
In other words, a guitar brand should produce great guitars that can fit a broad spectrum of buyers. This means guitars need to be versatile and affordable, with multiple series and lineups that are accessible to a broad client base.
Otherwise, you're looking for a consistent quality standard being met and a good reputation within the guitar playing community.
Which brand is most popular?
Epiphone and Squier consistently produce some of the best selling electric guitars on the planet. However, Gibson and Fender are the two most popular household names in guitar manufacturing. They have the most pure name recognition.
Which brand is most expensive?
Of the brands we mentioned, PRS is likely the most expensive (the non-SE electric guitars), coming in routinely at the $4000 and $5000 mark.
Gibson isn't far behind with many of their guitars retailing between $3000 and $4000.
Other boutique brands might go higher, but Gibson and PRS are the two mainline options that tend to run the highest price tags.
The Fender Custom Shop electrics get pretty high as well.
Which brand is cheapest?
Of all the brands we listed, Squier is by far the cheapest. Epiphone would be the second cheapest, leaving the rest as non-econ brands. Squier and Epiphone are the two main economy brands on the market and consistently produce the cheapest guitars, dollar for dollar.
Conclusion
This gives you a simple and straightforward overview of the best electric guitar brands on the market, what they are and what they're good at. If you're shopping for a new electric guitar, it's a good habit to get familiar with these brands and get to know their strengths/weaknesses.
Know what they're known for and why people like them.
Once you have a feel for the market, you can make better decisions about buying an electric guitar for yourself.
If you have questions about the best electric guitar brands, feel free to drop them in the comments section below. We'll jump in and help out as much as possible.
See you there.
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Written by Bobby on Guitars and Roundups
Written by Bobby on Guitars and Roundups
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