Feast your eyes on the finest acoustic guitars of 2022
(Image credit: Future)
2022 is officially drawing to a close, meaning it’s currently the perfect opportunity to look back over the past 12 months to revisit some of the best guitar gear we’ve had the pleasure of coming across.
It’s certainly been a year to remember, with a number of knock-out new releases making their way onto the market, from long-awaited electric guitars and boutique acoustic guitars all the way to surprise pedal drops and modern-minded guitar amps.
Not only that, 2022 has also helped cement the status of numerous pre-existing products as serious fan favorites, with many guitars, basses, pedals, amps and more from previous years earning their way onto our end-of-year round-up.
With that said, here is our 2022 holiday ultimate gear guide for the best acoustic guitars of 2022.
Fender Acoustasonic Player Telecaster
(Image credit: Fender)
Priced 40 percent less than previous models, Fender’s new Acoustasonic Player Telecaster makes it easier for guitarists to add an Acoustasonic to their arsenals as a second, third, fourth or 20th instrument without as big of an economic commitment. The regular Acoustasonic has an ebony fingerboard, three pickups, and a five-way switch that provides 10 different acoustic and electric voices.
The Player Telecaster has a rosewood fingerboard, two pickups, and a three-way switch. Also, the regular Acoustasonic is built in Corona, California, while the Player model is made in Mexico. In terms of craftsmanship and playability, the Acoustasonic Player Telecaster is essentially identical to the regular Acoustasonic.
The small body and dreadnought voices provide an ideal selection of balanced, warm tones, and the Player Telecaster is better suited towards players who mainly want to switch between acoustic and electric sounds without needing the nuances that acoustic specialists often require.
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The Fender Paramount PM-180E Mandolin is an acoustic-electric instrument with a classic A-style teardrop shape. Typical of the Paramount line, it’s not made of solid woods but rather of laminated mahogany back and sides, with a laminated spruce top.
The overall aesthetic is down-home handsome, with a modern classic sensibility. Playability is easy enough right out of the box. It facilitates everything from running scales to playing primary chords or stabbing out singular notes with good intonation and minimal fret splat. The PM-180E features parallel tone-bar bracing, which Fender says is designed to deliver a bright, clear tone, and that’s exactly how I’d describe the sound.
This mandolin is loud and lively, and it does a bang-up job filling a small room with sound. It’s equipped with a passive Fishman pickup that delivered a signal faithful to the acoustic tone to my Fender Acoustic Junior GO. Importantly, the level was well balanced from string to string.
Fender’s Paramount concept is about modern takes on vintage designs, and the Bluegrass Series takes it a step further, applying elements such as onboard electronics and modern neck profiles to old-time Americana instruments.
The factory action is slightly on the high side compared to a standard steel-string, and that’s certainly advantageous for an instrument that so easily lends itself to bottleneck Delta blues and lap-style slide playing. It’s easily adjustable via the dual-action truss rod as well.
The PR-180E’s tone is an interesting blend of wood and metal, warmth and clarity, attack and sustain, all with plenty of punchy volume. The real surprise is how good it sounds amplified. The PR-180E comes equipped with a Fishman Nashville Series pickup, which delivered a balmy, robust tone. This addition to the Paramount Bluegrass Collection will appeal to players who have come to love the Fender feel, trust the brand name and want to expand their styles in an Americana direction.
Fender’s excellent Paramount Series of acoustics are not only budget-friendly, but also include all the classic body styles of a Dreadnought, Orchestra and Parlor. The PD-220E aesthetics seem to draw from the Dust Bowl era of folk instruments.
For a few weeks, I was able to brush up on my (poor) bluegrass chops with the mighty Fender Paramount PD-220E Dreadnought, digging into its nimble playability and loud projection. The guitar includes a Fender and Fishman-designed Sonitone Plus preamp with soundhole-mounted controls for volume and blend.
It’s solidly built, with a powerfully bright, mid-ranged voice that has thunderous volume for a budget dreadnought, and there’s a pleasant brassy chime to the guitar if you pick softly. I might persuade you to consider this acoustic over anything else in a room full of dreadnoughts: For its price, the Fender PD-220E ticks all the proper boxes in sight and sound – and that’s paramount.
Recently, Gibson joined the ranks of guitar builders that offer side sound ports with the introduction of its new Generation Collection guitars. The G-00 is based upon the design of the 14-fret neck Gibson L-00 introduced in the Thirties, with a Sitka spruce top, walnut back and sides, and utile (an African tonewood with properties similar to mahogany) neck with striped ebony fingerboard.
The top has traditional scalloped X-bracing and the bodies and necks have a satin nitrocellulose finish. The Gibson Player Port on the side is surrounded with a plastic ring that reinforces the hole and prevents damage. Construction is clean, solid and meticulous, and the guitar provides outstanding playability thanks to the slim neck profile.
The small-body G-00 sounds like a good parlor-size acoustic should, with well-balanced overall tone that’s ideal for fingerstyle playing. What this guitar lacks in glitz, it more than compensates for in tone and dynamic responsiveness.
Gibson’s Generation Collection G-45 replaces the original Generation G-45 Standard and Studio models introduced in 2019, and has modest aesthetics. The woods appear unrefined and barely finished in an open-pore matte satin style that appears so natural, the guitar could perhaps have come straight off a workbench. In terms of playability, the G-45 falls between modern and classic.
The “advanced response” neck profile is basically a C shape — on the slim side, but not too slim. Like the other Generation Collection models, the round-shouldered dreadnought G-45 has a Player Port, which certainly adds dimension and a deeper sense of immersion for the player, and delivers a welcome element of fun.
The assumption must be that younger, more adventurous players on a budget would dig such an unconventional element on a guitar that’s otherwise designed to deliver fundamentally classic tones with modern playability. Kudos for that and for putting American-made instruments within reach of the masses.
Over the years, luthiers have experimented with placing sound ports on an acoustic guitar’s side to direct some of the guitar’s output upward towards the player as well. Thanks to this port, the Gibson Generation G-200’s sound is louder, but also more focused and direct than one might expect.
While some of the sound is directed out of the side toward the player, the side player port does not adversely affect the primary tone coming out of the traditional soundhole. The G-200 has a 25.5-inch scale length, and is decorated with single bar fret marker fingerboard inlays and single-layer black binding surrounding the body’s top and back.
It includes a built-in LR Baggs Element Bronze under-saddle pickup and preamp with soundhole mounted volume control, and delivers outstanding natural acoustic tone, big bass and bold treble, with a nice, warm midrange that makes strummed chord rhythms drive like a freight train.
The square-shouldered dreadnought cutaway Gibson Generation Collection G-Writer has a tight sound all around, with powerful projection that its Player Port seems to bolster. I could sense the booming low sound waves impacting the bones in my ears: It made me want to chunk away percussively with muted strings like John Fogerty at the start of “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.”
The Writer takes to lowered tunings like a duck to water. When I sat down and played in a low C tuning, I swear I could feel resonations passing into the floor. The G-Writer EC was obviously designed with the performer in mind, as it has Baggs Element Bronze electronics and cutaways for upper-register access, hence the “EC” designation for electronics and cutaway.
The sonorous G-Writer is particularly well suited for a variety of applications, from bedroom to the studio and the stage, and it earns our Editors’ Pick Award.
Last year’s release of the innovative Lava Me 3 proved that smart devices could seamlessly co-exist within a carbon-fiber instrument in a beneficial way. The only hiccup was that its price made it a challenging peak for those curious enough to explore its app-driven tools (which are primed for practicing and creating instant musical content) and on-the-go, player-friendly size. Enter the eco-friendly Blue Lava guitar, which includes the same HILAVA interface as its predecessor at a far more prudent price.
Blue Lava eschews wood for a recyclable HPL (high-pressure laminate) and employs Lava’s 4-Mass internal design structure to enhance vibrations throughout the body and neck, ensuring a much better bass response and a robust acoustic tone in a lightweight, composite material guitar that’s built to endure extreme temperature changes.
The app-based touchscreen display above the soundhole port allows you to access the HILAVA system’s many built-in actuator-enhanced effects (no external amp required), play along and record with a multitude of musical grooves and measure your performance and progress with interactive practice apps. The system also features an onboard tuner, metronome, multi-track looper and recorder and so much more – making it a game-changing, all-in-one guitar.
Even more affordable than the Blue Lava, the Blue Lava Original is as innovative as its predecessors, promising supreme playability, onboard guitar effects and even a FreeBoost technology system that turns the back of the guitar into a de facto speaker.
Like the Blue Lava, this 36-inch, 3.7-pound ultra-compact travel guitar is made from HPL (high-pressure laminate) material, said to be stable in all situations, withstanding temperature, humidity and unwanted spills. It's offered as a full-acoustic model and paired with Lava's L2 preamp with FreeBoost technology that turns the back of the guitar into a speaker of sorts. Onboard chorus, delay and reverb tones that can be accessed via the upper bout buttons.
Alas, there’s no room for a Blue Lava-style touch screen, but with a retail price of almost $200 cheaper than its predecessor, the Blue Lava Original’s onboard effects seem like a more-than-fair compromise.
An innovative development of the previous two Lava ME iterations, the ME 3 comes equipped with a three-and-a-half-inch multi-touch display that aims makes guitar tools as intuitive as smartphones. The Me 3 is loaded with the HILAVA operating system, which provides a wealth of applications that grant users easy access to tools such as a tuner, metronome, looper with over 100 grooves of different genres that players can loop up to four tracks over, a variety of tweakable effects and an audio recorder.
Elsewhere, the Practice app offers five practice modes that provide a detailed feedback report to document progress, supported by sound detection technology that identifies playing accuracy. Plus, the Lava ME 3's connectivity lets users share their recordings to the Lava+ social media platform.
Structurally, the refined unibody carbon fiber acoustic has a revamped FreeBoost 2.0 accentuator for a more pronounced low-end and Lava Music’s 4-MASS technology, which contributes to a “clear, full and rich sound from the get-go”.
Available in 36-inch and 38-inch iterations, the Lava Me 3 sports a choice of White, Pink, Soft Gold, Blue, Red and Space Gray colorways, and comes equipped with a Plek machine-leveled HPL fretboard. Accessories include the Space Charging Dock, which also serves as a convenient guitar stand, as well the Space Bag and adjustable Ideal Strap 2.
The elegant 000-42 MD is a favorite Martin style because it’s upscale, yet not as extravagant or expensive as the top-tier 45. This 000-42 is stunning in classic fashion, featuring plenty of Golden Era abalone and mother-of-pearl inlays.
I love the snowflake inlays on either end of the bridge, and on this MD the Liquidmetal bridge pins are golden, with top inlays that bring them in line with the rest of the design. Like all Modern Deluxes, the neck is modeled after the 1930 OM-45 Deluxe hanging in the Martin Museum, but this one feels a little less asymmetrical and more C-shaped.
It’s awesome for playing anything from country blues to classic rock, using varied approaches from a pick to fingerstyle or hybrid picking. The sound is right in the sweet spot as well: not too booming, not too bright — a real Goldilocks zone. This guitar looks as fabulous as it plays.
Martin’s Modern Deluxe Series in 2019 was a major move, replacing the Vintage Series with this forward/retro series just above the Standard line. This year’s six new MDs have progressive features, including torrified tops, titanium truss rods, Liquidmetal bridge pins and carbon-fiber-composite bridge plates, the concept being not to reinvent the wheel but to update it by applying modern technology to classic platforms.
The parlor-sized 0012-28 MD has the same Modern Deluxe appointments as its predecessors and represents a move into smaller sizes. Unlike the “regular” 00-28 MD, this 0012 has 12 frets to the body, with that classic, more slender look of a pre-1930 Martin parlor guitar. It’s wonderfully compact, yet very loud and super resonant, with sustain for days.
If you’re a dedicated fingerpicker or simply want a parlor-sized, old-world Martin with the contemporary functionality and above-Standard aesthetics that Modern Deluxe has to offer, then the 0012-28 MD has all the right moves.
Martin’s standard J is essentially a deeper M/0000 style, but this Grand J combines the shallower depth of an M or triple 0 with a broad, jumbo-sized waist designed for maximum top surface and ergonomic comfort, plus a dual-element Fishman electronics system.
The guitar has a few nice appointments, including a bold herringbone with multi-stripe rosette, and antique-white body binding. The classic wood combination is solid East Indian rosewood with a Sitka spruce top. This instrument is ergonomically engineered for a fantastic feel, and it was comfortable to play.
The Grand J-16E’s high performance neck taper felt comfy in hand, and the combination of extra-light strings on a shallow body with a wide waist all adds up to a chimey 12-string tone, with a shimmering top end, plenty of mids and a decent bass response. Martin’s Grand J-16E covers a ton of ground without breaking the bank, and for that it earns an Editors’ Pick Award.
Martin Guitar took a plunge in 2020 by introducing the avant-garde SC-13E model geared toward players who favor an acoustic guitar with the same degree of playability as an electric. It was a bold move, but the gamble paid off because, for 2022, Martin Guitar launched three additional SC Models.
The SC-10E retains the radically innovative Sure Align Linear Dovetail neck joint that affords guitarists tweakable adjustments: It’s effortless to play, because the SC-10E is set up as low and fast as some of my favorite electric guitars, making it all the more astonishing that an acoustic could command such swift playability.
The low-profile velocity neck facilitates wide interval stretches and easy bends, and if you navigate past the 12th fret, your range of travel is practically unimpeded. If you’ve ever thought you couldn’t find a reasonably priced acoustic that plays as easily as an electric, you absolutely need to experience the wonder that is the SC-10E.
In 2020, Martin rolledthe dice on a radical new S design, and it paid off by becoming the company’s most popular acoustic-electric. Martin has expanded the range to include the fancy SC-13E Special Burst, boasting a stunning back and sides made of a fine ziricote veneer with dark-brown grains, highlighted by a glossy finish and attached to the top with bright-white binding.
There’s heartiness to the tone, and it doesn’t come at any loss of presence. The sound is as deep as it is wide. Like all S models, the SC-13E Special Burst is built to shred, and the helical nature of its neck profile is key. In lower positions, it’s full and chunky on the bass side.
Move up the neck a bit, and the form becomes more evenly balanced to make barre chords a cinch. Considering its playability, sound and stage presence, the Martin SC-13E Special Burst earns an Editors’ Pick Award.
Whereas Taylor’s luxurious Koa Series guitars are made from the highest instrument-grade wood, these koa additions to the 700 series take a more workmanlike approach. This essentially straight-grain koa is more uniquely streaked and less extravagantly figured, and the treatment here is super thin and practically unfinished.
A dark-stained maple pickguard blends seamlessly, and the polished bronze tuners practically match the wound phosphor-bronze strings. The clear, natural sound matches the feel, which is lighter and far less dampened than the Koa Series. It takes very little pick energy to set the 724’s top in motion, and it is capable of a wide variety of tones, from mellow to bright, depending on the attack.
The focus is a warm, sweet middle range, with a detailed sparkle on top. The 724ce invites fingerpicking and playing with a flexible plectrum. Play too hard and the top end becomes more brittle, so heavy strummers may prefer the heartier Koa Series models.
Most acoustic flattop steel string guitars built today feature spruce tops – more than 90 percent of them, in fact – but Taylor’s new AD22e is built from a tonewood recipe combining a solid Sapele back and sides and solid mahogany top. It’s similar to the previous Taylor AD27 American Dream model, but this is the first time Taylor has offered that tonewood combination on a smaller Grand Concert guitar.
The AD22e also features a mahogany neck and eucalyptus fretboard. With its 15-inch body width, it is ideal for players seeking a smaller instrument with focused midrange, whether they specialize in folk, Celtic, blues or even jazz styles. It supplies a compellingly rich and woody tone, although its overall range is more midrange focused, with less bass thump and slightly more sparkling treble.
Still, it sounds much bigger than its body size, making it ideal for players who prefer the comfort of a smaller body without sacrificing too much range.
Recent supply chain issues inspired Taylor Guitars master guitar designer Andy Powers to use available materials when developing new models. The new AD27e uses big leaf maple for the back, sides and, most interestingly, the top.
Powers modified the V-Class bracing to provide a warmer, rounder tone that still delivers bold projection, and other important features include a 16-inch wide body with satin “Woodsmoke” finish, eucalyptus fretboard and 25 ½-inch scale length. The AD27e Flametop delivers a big, masculine voice with exceptionally dynamic response.
Its tone is truly unique thanks in part to the nickel bronze strings, which enhance the softer, mellower textures when played with a light touch and make the guitar sound brighter, bigger and bolder when played with heavier force. This guitar covers an impressive range of tones just through playing dynamics, but with a consistent roundness and woodiness throughout, even when amplified via the Expression System 2 electronics.
“The least Taylor-sounding guitar you’ve heard to date,” as the American Dream AD27e Flametop was described to us, definitely has a distinctive sound. The tone is dry and on the dark side, and there aren’t a lot of complex overtones but rather a flat, fundamental tone focused in the middle range.
The Flametop comes with D’Addario Nickel Bronze strings, which are a significant factor in this earthy-sounding equation. The guitar is also equipped with Taylor ES2 electronics and a eucalyptus neck, and the Nickel Bronze strings feel and sound worn-in, even when they’re brand-new. The Flametop begs to be strummed aggressively with a thick pick, cowboy-style.
It’s a no-frills, broken-in and practically road-worn tone that lends authenticity to blues. The weathered look of its shaded edgeburst Woodsmoke finish and satin sheen perfectly matches the dusky, gritty tone. The owner of the local recording studio took one solid strum of the Flametop and proclaimed, “That’s my favorite Taylor ever.”
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