Takamine P2DC Acoustic Guitar Review

The vision of Takamine is to ‘craft guitars in an artful, thoughtful way - instruments that take your performance to new heights’.  With exacting detail the soundboard, frets, bracing and neck shape are assembled with this in mind. And the result? A guitar that is comfortable to play, exhibits tonal richness and projects well...exactly what one wants from an acoustic guitar.

The Takamine Pro Series guitars are constructed in their entirety in Japan using a combination of traditional craftsmanship and modern technology. 
Specifically the guitar we are reviewing today is the P2DC dreadnought model, featuring an X-braced solid spruce top, mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard, and sapele back and sides. The guitar uses the Takamine split saddle bone bridge for high accurate intonation, chrome die-cast machine heads for tuning accuracy and stability, and the CT4BII preamp system with 3-band EQ, volume control and built-in tuner, and comes in a deluxe hard case.

So…how does it play and how does it sound? 

Being a dreadnought the low end of the guitar is evident and there is plenty of projection, but it is not overpowering of the treble strings. In all it is quite well-balanced tonally across the frequency range for both fingerpicking and strumming. The instrument records particularly well with minimum effort to get a good result with mic placement and the results were particularly pleasing. It can be difficult (ok, impossible) to really know how a guitar sounds to the listener when you are playing it. The guitar sounded good when I was playing it, but sounded great when I listened back to it from the recordings I made, and this provides a much better indication of what the audience would hear. 

The neck profile is similar to my Martin D-18. It is a little deeper than I like (not having particularly big hands), but this is a personal preference. My Taylor has a very shallow neck that I find very comfortable…this Takamine (and my Martin) are both a little more challenging for me to play…but they still play very well, it is just harder to use certain approaches such as playing with my thumb over the top to fret notes. However I know some people who much prefer this style of neck for their approach to playing, and probably have bigger hands than I do!

The onboard tuner is very good and makes the ability to tune onstage very easy. As an aside, If you are a player that is not accustomed to tuning when playing, start doing so now! Even during a song where possible.

The guitar has a high-gloss natural Satin finish, is comfortable to sit with when playing, and represents great value for an instrument of this quality.