Takamine, underrated and overlooked?

back in 2012 when all I had was a worn out S6, I was looking at guitars. One I almost bought was a Takamine spruce/Maple Jumbo. No idea what model it was. It was bright!
One day, at Musicircle, I was playing it and my luthier at the time was dropping repairs off at the store. I asked him what he thought of it. First thing he said was 'You won't be able to tune a step down, it will not hold its intonation." IAT the time, I didn't think that mattered. I was going to pull the trigger anyways after talking to my wife. (Remember I had only the S6 at the time.) But when I went back to purchase it, it was gone and they didn't expect to get any more. A few weeks later they got in a folk and a mini-jumbo spruce/maple Seagulls...


SO TonyKgull , almost. If I had gotten that Takamine, the whole of my subsequent guitar purchases would have followed a different, not Seagull-centric path. I would have never met all of us from the old AGC Seagull Spoken Here forum and I would be a lot poorer in friends.
Thanks

Derick, Ya, that is a thing with Takamine.  They are the only one, that I know of, that uses laminate tops further up their "tier" range.  Most other brands, if not all, go to solid tops starting at lower in their respective tier ranges.  It's an interesting decision by Takamine that they seem to stick to.

El Gull, I've played a few Takamine cedar topped guitars and they did sound quite amazing every time.

Maybe there's something to this overbuilt, cedar topped guitar thing.  I wonder if there's any other companies that will catch on to that?   

are we in it now?

I am new here and saw this thread. I have owned a couple of Taks before. One was in the mid 80's with a smaller body and had very nice electronics. Takamine acoustic/electrics were quite popular with touring bands in the 80's-90's due to the pickup/electronics system and durability. Similar to Ovation in the 70's. Truth be told I couldn't tell you the make model I had back then. I just know I paid around $500-$600 for it 1980's money. I don't even recall why or when I sold it. Many years later I also had a G340 dread that was an ok guitar for less than $200 at the time. I used it for gigs with a Fishman sound hole pickup and playing on the street(busking). Not really a tone monster acoustically. All laminated and heavily overbuilt.

Fast forward to now. My old "vintage" made in Japan Morris acoustic needs to retire from active duty. I started looking for a newer replacement I could "bash around" outdoors in the yard or on the street when I recently found an early 2000's Takamine G320 dread for sale used online. It came with a decent hardshell case for a fair price so figured what the heck? It's in almost new condition and was hardly ever played. It needed new strings and a setup but I can do that so I bought it right on the spot. I lowered the saddle and still with old strings it sounds way better than an all laminated "intermediate" guitar should. It stays in tune quite well. It's not heavy or overbuilt and has nice resonant bass and good sustain. I do a lot of strumming, a little flatpicking and a little fingerpicking so it suits me fine. I know this guitar has been discontinued.

Here's a couple of pics.

oldguitarplayer, Welcome to the forum!

In our area there is a TV station called the "Circle Network" just about every night there is a music program from the Grand Old Opery. I have really noticed of late the large number of big name players using a Takamine on stage. They could afford to play whatever they liked, and I'm sure could get a sponsor deal from any guitar manufacturer.

I can remember time was if you needed to plug in an acoustic it was either gonna be a Tak or an Ovation. I bought an Ovation once just for that reputation.

oldguitarplayer , Sounds like my old Tak.  I never took care of that thing in regards to humidifying it or anything.  Didn't really know about that stuff back then.  It was almost always in tune and was as good the day I sold it as it was when I bought it, maybe even better cuz it's sound got deeper and I had the top five frets refretted with jumbo stainless steel ones.

That was the toughest built guitar I've ever had.  The only guitars I can think of that are better built than my old Tak are either the carbon fibre ones or the HPL/Richlite/Stratabond guitars from Martin.  Neither of which even existed back when I had my Tak.