Well, after all the glowing endorsements of Takamines I regret to say that my one experience with them is not so positive. A few years ago, a friend got it in his head that he wanted a Takamine. He tried out every one in the store and finally settled on an acoustic-electric with a body the size of a Martin J. Well, when he brought it over to show it to me and we played a few songs together it sounded like pure crap up beside my DC-28. He took it back to the store the next day and traded up to a Taylor 710. I don't doubt that they make some good guitars, but that one sure wasn't one of them.

He later admitted to having fallen in love with the plugged-in sound of the Tak, which is kinda dumb since he rarely plays plugged-in. Also, the music store from which he bought it keeps a California Blonde acoustic amp set up to demo AE's. Not exactly a fair test to my mind since the Cal Blonde is such a great amp that it will make anything sound good. If you're gonna try out AE's you need to bring your own amp.

Bruce