Takamine, underrated and overlooked?

nice guitar.

blues90, Thanks! After 2 weeks of having it I think it's a great guitar! I like it's plain and simple look. It plays very good, the tuners work very well and the intonation is quite good. The sound is nice when played fingerstyle quietly or flatpicked and strummed moderately hard when singing. My only upgrade I think would be a new Graph Tech Tusq saddle to replace the plastic one just to see if it makes a difference in tone for the better.

So just helped a friend of someone in my church buy a guitar today.

The only thing was his budget was 300 bucks max.   Ok.  Didn't really know what to advise aside from the usual stuff but went to the guitar store with him.  I asked him to try as many guitars as we had time for.

He (and I) tried Yamaha, Eastman, Seagull, A&L, S&P, Breedlove, Cort, Takamine, and I think the last cheap one was Beaver Creek.

Long story short, he decided on a Takamine GD11M NS straight up dread, no pickup, no cutaway.   And wow.  He loved it and I was actually quite blown away by it.  It sounded amazing.  All laminate sapele but bold, balanced and beautiful sounding.  I'm still kind of shocked, but in a good way.  So much so that I might actually consider a Takamine for my next budget, kick around, leave out guitar.  I was also amazed by the perfect action out of the box.

It's been a while, and today I realized I had really either forgotten how good Takamine is, or, they have just gotten that much better.  But either way, boy that guitar sounded like sweet and tangy butter!      There just might be a Takamine again in my future.

Myself and just about everybody I've heard say it, in my parts anyways,
always pronounced it like this:

Tack - a (short a) meen knee.  So, "Tack a meen knee."

I always thought that was weird considering the spelling and how grammar works, but that's how everybody's said it since way back when I bought my first one and didn't even know what they were.  So I just went with how all the "guitar people" (players and store sales people) pronounced it at the time and still do.

I have heard a couple of people, and by a couple I mean just 2, pronounce it like this:

Tack a mine.  Just like that reads.  Like, "That tack is mine."  Tack a mine.  lol.


However, keep this in mind:
"A Takamine by any pronunciation will still play the same songs." 
                                             - The Great Unknown Guitar Philosopher. 

TonyKgull, Very cool! Helping someone find a nice guitar is great! When researching my G320 I saw a few very positive reviews from owners of the GD11M-NS on YouTube.