I'm new, What's wrong with Takamine?

[Hank McHardie]

I don't know, but it seems to me that expecting much from a $300 guitar is asking for quite a lot. My advice would be to save your money so as to be able to afford something more in the $600-$700 dollar range. However, you won't be getting a truly excellent/rewarding guitar until you can afford one more in the range of $1200 (+). Takamine makes some truly great guitars; otherwise, you wouldn't see so many professionals using them. But you have to know what you're doing when buying instruments of any kind. If you're not sure then seek out someone whom you trust - get their opinion.

[DeepEnd]

4 hours ago, Hank McHardie said:

I don't know, but it seems to me that expecting much from a $300 guitar is asking for quite a lot. My advice would be to save your money so as to be able to afford something more in the $600-$700 dollar range. However, you won't be getting a truly excellent/rewarding guitar until you can afford one more in the range of $1200 (+). Takamine makes some truly great guitars; otherwise, you wouldn't see so many professionals using them. But you have to know what you're doing when buying instruments of any kind. If you're not sure then seek out someone whom you trust - get their opinion.

First, welcome to the Forum. Second, $300 will buy a decent, well made guitar with a solid top. You won't get a D28 but you'll get something playable that sounds halfway decent and just might be all the guitar you need. $600-700 is overkill for many people, let alone $1200+. One reason pros play Takamines is that they're well built and sound good plugged in, factors that don't matter as much to folks who don't perform. Finally, you've just answered a question that was asked over 14 years ago. I'm pretty sure the OP has made a decision by now.

[daddymack]

Third...the $300 was in 2005...so now it would be more like a $400 guitar, and honestly, I see some very interesting guitars lately in that price range, made in Asia, but point being [and I tried to run a guitar import company once] they are so much better at it now than they were 15 years ago. They still aren't good at factory setups*, but the quality and the appearance of the instruments gets better every year. Are they making the equivalent to a Martin, Gibson, Taylor, Guild? No, not yet...yet...give them time, they will get there. It took the Japanese twenty years[ and the Marshall Plan] to beat us with our own tools** in manufacturing...radios, televisions, cars, VCRs, flatscreen TV, and so on...now they move their production methods off-shore [like we tried], and beget the South Korean behemoth, revitalized China, woke up Indonesia, and sparked Viet Nam...

 

 

*when we had our company,  I was doing the setups here, because the factory just did not grasp the concept, and I couldn't go over to Shenzen for two weeks to teach them why certain things about a guitar are important; they are communists, not guitarists, after all. They have been told all their lives to do what they are shown, and do it well, and they will be taken care of...plus, they were making 'generics' for re-labeling, but they had just embarked on a production deal for a major American guitar company, which was the main reason I had my partner approach that particular factory.

 

** Henry Ford wrote the book, Toyota swallowed it, crapped it out, and re-wrote it, updated it by 50 years...still a best seller in the manufacturing realm...no one even mentions Ford, and it really was his methodology...one his own company let go.