Music is my life so i want to play a guitar that sounds good right from the start. The better an inst sounds the more you will want to play it. catspaw49 gave good advice! If you can afford a Martin DM go for it. It's a great guitar for the price and with the Martin name on it if you find guitar playing is not your forte a used Martin of any model will be easy to re-sell without a loss. If you can afford just a little more money the Martin DR (R for rosewood) is a steal and very re-sellable. The action on any guitar is adjustable and can be set very low for a beginner to make it easy to play. After your fingers develope and the pain goes away (only if you practice alot) you can have the action raised to get more sound. Had not the weather turned warm so suddenly i had planned to take "Paw & Cletus ice fishing where they could keep their beer real cold an after a few 6 packs thought they mite just like to play my old Gibson archtop with DeArmend pick up attached. Under the conditions of ice fishing and the very memorable lack of electrical insulation not packed into them DeArmend units our worries of meeting up with them two collectors would be laid to rest. On second thought maybe it's not to late. Round these parts we usually summer fish with quarter sticks. Hmmmm :-)