These are the best new acoustic guitars of 2024, according to the Guitar.com team
The acoustic guitar is enjoying a true renaissance in 2024 – from Noah Kahan and Lizzy McAlpine to Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift, pop music entered its folk era this year and did so with an acoustic guitar in hand.
READ MORE: These are the best electric guitars of 2024 according to the Guitar.com team
All of which means that there’s never been a better time to embrace the wonderful world of the flat-top, and unsurprirsingly the guitar industry is already responding to the new wave of acoustic artists storming the charts by producing a slew of innovative and original new instruments to help them, and those inspired by them, take their art to another level.
We’ve always got our collective fingers on the pulse of what’s new and exciting here at Guitar.com, and so we’ve had the opportunity to road-test many of these new acoustic guitars over the last 12 months, and give them our verdict.
All that means is that below you’ll find our pick of the best acoustic instruments we’ve reviewed in 2024 – if you need a new six-string and you want something that’s guaranteed to make you smile, you won’t go wrong with one of these.
The Guitar.com team’s top new acoustic guitars of 2024, at a glance:
Best open-mic acoustic guitar: Martin 000-X2E
Best acoustic guitar for playability: Taylor 314ce LTD
Best affordable acoustic guitar: Guild D-320
Best entry level acoustic guitar: Gretsch Jim Dandy Dread
Best stage acoustic guitar: LR Baggs AEG-1
Best sustainable acoustic guitar: Martin GPCE Inception Maple
[products ids=”3zYPV71LYCDhqlPy8nbMPg,6yFX5ZApTpzwdgi9l7f3R7,5sIu5xaYMfoSB1lCqqqDzC,1eDDjHQ2ooi8hRSDqlcKzl,41mnNtGAnP2pZpmYPqCgD6,6LHNwCvDiXzks4QV9ORbGP”]
Best open-mic acoustic guitar: Martin 000-X2E
Image: Martin Guitar
Martin’s X Series has long been a great place for musicians to get onto the Martin ladder – these Mexico made guitars are the most affordable things that come with that most famous of acoustic marques on the headstock. But for the longest time, the X Series felt like you were paying more for that headstock logo than anything else, with corners cut and looks that didn’t exactly scream ‘heritage’ abounding.
In 2024 all of that changed – the Remastered X Series transformed these budget electro-acoustic guitars to make them look, feel and sound as good as a Martin guitar should. No longer a compromise, these now feel like bona fide Martin guitars, but for a lot less money – and this 000 might be the perfect intermediate guitar for buskers and open-mic players.
[products ids=”6yFX5ZApTpzwdgi9l7f3R7″]
Need more? Read our Martin 000-X2E review.
Best acoustic guitar for playability: Taylor 314ce LTD
Taylor celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2024, and as part of the celebrations the company took a fresh look at some of its most crowd-pleasing guitars, and there are few guitars that have pleased the Taylor faithful over the last few decades than the flagship 314ce.
For 2024 Andy Powers and his team took the blueprint of a guitar that personifies Taylor better than any other and gave it a new twist – with an effortlessly playable neck, torrefied Sitka spruce top and sapele back and sides. So much so that it inspired our resident acoustic expert Michael to declare it to be, “one of the most inspiring and musical Taylor guitars I have ever played”.
[products ids=”5sIu5xaYMfoSB1lCqqqDzC”]
Need more? Read our Taylor 314ce LTD review.
Best affordable acoustic guitar: Guild D-320
Photo by Adam Gasson for Guitar.com
The acoustic heritage of Guild puts it on a par with some of the most storied and famous brands in the business, and yet you rarely see people playing them in the real world. The D-320 and its stablemates in the new 300 Series might be about to change that rapidly.
Because let’s not beat around the bush here, these are acoustic guitars with solid tops, great looks and excellent playability for less than $300… oh and it says Guild on the headstock, which puts you in the same company as Nick Drake, John Denver, Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Brian May, Jeff Buckley, Eric Clapton… and a new generation of artists like Beabadoobee, Father John Misty and The Japanese House. For $299 – an absolute steal.
[products ids=”41mnNtGAnP2pZpmYPqCgD6″]
Need more? Read our Guild D-320 review.
Best entry level acoustic guitar: Gretsch Jim Dandy Dread
Image: Adam Gasson for Guitar.com
Entry-level acoustic guitars can sometimes be quite, well… depressing. Too often we ask people embarking into the wonderful world of the flat-top to take their first steps in guitars that present challenges both in terms of sound, playability and especially in terms of vibes.
Thank goodness then, for this Dreadnought from Gretsch’s wonderfully evocative Jim Dandy range. It feels good, it sounds pretty good and it looks absolutely killer – and all this for under $200? There’s arguably no more vibey acoustic guitar to be had even at twice or three times the price, and it’s the sort of instrument that anyone would be happy to have sat in their bedroom, livingroom or office.
[products ids=”6LHNwCvDiXzks4QV9ORbGP”]
Need more? Read our Gretsch Jim Dandy Dread review.
Best stage acoustic guitar: LR Baggs AEG-1
Image: LR Baggs
Does the world really need another electro-acoustic guitar design? Well, when the person getting involved in the design is Lloyd Baggs, perhaps the world’s greatest exponent of acoustic guitar electrification, and the instrument in question is a revolutionary thinline design that’s been percolating in his mind for decades, absolutely.
Simply put, the AEG-1 is the best sounding electro-acoustic guitar our veteran acoustic reviewer Eric has ever played – or heard – plugged into an amplifier. It’s also a wonderfully ergonomic and comfortable instrument to play either seated or standing, and while its looks are certainly not conventional, they’re unlikely to provoke the same kind of reactions that other ‘stage’ guitars might. A remarkable achievement.
[products ids=”3zYPV71LYCDhqlPy8nbMPg”]
Need more? Read our LR Baggs AEG-1 review.
Best sustainable acoustic guitar: Martin GPCE Inception Maple
Martin has been making guitars for 190-odd years now, but in recent times the brand has looked to push the boundaries and offer some new designs that break from the company’s unimpeachable history of classic designs such as the dreadnought, 000 and the like. New for 2024, the GPCE Inception Maple might be the most striking of the lot.
The Inception is a guitar designed to make use of entirely sustainable and domestic tonewoods, differing significantly from the Martin recipe. But it’s more than just an exercise in conservation, the Inception is a guitar designed for the modern player, with a tweaked version of the classic Martin sound, and playability that blurs the boundaries with electric guitars. The result is a ‘new crayon in the box’ and one of the most tonally and visually unique Martin guitars ever.
[products ids=”1eDDjHQ2ooi8hRSDqlcKzl”]
Need more? Read our Martin GPCE Inception Maple review.
The post These are the best new acoustic guitars of 2024, according to the Guitar.com team appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
