Is There One Specific Attribute You Look for When buying a Guitar?

[William2]

I see a lot of discussion about tone woods, scale lengths, and body sizes that players would like in their next instrument. For me, I look for an instrument that has an easy response and long sustain. I can adjust to various wood tone colors, I like standard scale, and can play all sizes although I prefer large instruments. But if the top three stings don't have a great sustain, I find slower pieces seem to suffer. Is there one thing at the top of your criteria that a guitar must have.

[ducktrapper]

Yes and no. Since I play both acoustic and electric and in different situations (home, stage, studio), I have different guitars for those purposes. That said, I'd say ease of play is most important. Tone is very subjective, sustain is good and both often more in the fingers than the guitar. While it seems, I prefer spruce, mahogany or rosewood, woods don't really interest me that much other than they make for pretty guitars.   

[StringPicker6]

I agree that ease of play is important. Go into a music store and try a $100 beginner guitar and you will experience an uncomfortable guitar.

[B0WIE]

Being that I like my guitars to each fill a different role, I don't have a lot of rules. For instance, I like sustain but I do need instruments that don't have a lot of it as it ruins certain styles where you need a more percussive note attack. But, I am really picky and will usually spend a month or two checking online several times a day before making a purchase.

I'm big into tone woods but I have to admit that some of my best instruments have standard woods so I guess I care less about woods when I'm looking at the more boutique/high end builders because it seems to matter less there. If it's a mid priced build I do want it to have special woods.

Visually, I only really care about them having a
slotted headstock as it just looks so much better to me.

[broKen]

There's an OM being offered by a dealer that is a twelve fret, short scale, 1⅞ nut that I would have bought but for the cutaway. I'm not a very skillful player so ease of play is first.