Properly setup, the guitars you mention are still pretty much decent, but lower end instruments. To see all the htreads on guitars (and related) enter GUITAR in the filter box and set the refresh to 2 years. That ought to give you bookoo threads to read.

As you can see, Seagull gets good reviews for the price, but there are others. Be sure to check the elderly Instruments site on the LINKS/Instrument Related page and you'll see they have a broad selection of price ranges and they are great to work with. Also, Mandolin Bros. in New York. Sigma is Martin's offshore import by the way and you can compare local to Elderly and others there too. Properly setup, not terrible at all.

Spaw