Best Acoustic Guitars Under $2,000 – My High-end Favorites!

The D-15M perfectly represents the finest invention by Martin, the most widely used acoustic shape in the world, the dreadnought. This guitar sounds big, loud, and proud with lots of projection and a low-end that can fill the room with any chord.

I’ve played this guitar in completely unplugged shows and the result was outstanding on every occasion. It is entirely made of solid mahogany and is a no-frills approach to pure tone. There’s no fancy rosette, no binding, no purfling, and no additives; just pure tone.

The whole guitar is finished with a matte lacquer that is very hand-friendly but that also gives it a killer look. Let me tell you that the more you play it, the more the matte finish gets “polished” and becomes even softer to the touch.

Mine got polished behind the neck and where my elbow touches the body and it looks just as gorgeous as it sounds.

So, speaking of sounds, the soundboard of this guitar has the legendary X-Bracing (another Martin invention) with genuine Sitka spruce, which helps tame the lows and projects that midrange to the infinite.

This combination makes it the perfect guitar for solo performers and people who are after that big, quintessential, traditional Martin tone that sits loud and proud in the middle of the mix. I just love it for solo shows and I feel it complements my voice perfectly giving it the right canvas for me to paint other melodies on.

The one thing I have to warn you about is that this guitar’s action is usually sky-high from the factory, but there’s plenty of room to maneuver, and the true Indian rosewood fretboard sounds just as sweet and beautiful even with a low action (I have mine set to low and fast and it sounds killer).

Low action on this guitar, with such a fast, thin neck turns it into a sonic highway that invites you to take chances. So, if it feels unplayable out of the box, ask the shop to set it up properly and you’ll be in acoustic guitar heaven.

(I had to stop my writing and go play it for a while, I was enjoying it for half an hour before making it back to the computer. It’s addictive!)

The one thing I have to say before finishing is that, when I bought it, it came in a beautiful hardshell case but now it comes with a very sturdy soft case. It might be a bummer or a detail to you, but I thought you should know it.

If you want that big, traditional Martin sound, this guitar is a great choice. For a more modern, smaller-sounding, more upper-midrange-oriented sound, you should look elsewhere.

That, along with the ebony fingerboard is something you expect to find on guitars that are, at least, twice the price of this instrument.

Also, let me tell you, as a mahogany lover, the only thing that adds more sweetness and darkness to the tone than mahogany is rosewood. That said, it’s also a much, much more expensive and precious tonewood to come across.

Although it’s an astonishing feature, it’s just the tip of the iceberg here; there’s a whole lot more making this a superb instrument.

Let’s dive right in.

I did an unplugged test first and played some big open chords with a pick, strumming full power. The guitar’s scalloped X-bracing made the soundboard reverberate and the sound was vibrant, huge, and very balanced. The low end was sweeter than mahogany and the natural harmonic content of the tone was otherworldly.

I tried fingerpicking, soft strumming, and even tuned it to open G to have some fun with the slide and the guitar excelled in all categories. In my opinion, if instead of cutting holes straight into the rosewood (which is criminal if you ask me), the company had chosen a less invasive set of electronics, the guitar would resonate even more.

Going to the electric side of things, it would be a shame to have only a piezo transducer and lose all the glory of the rosewood, so the company decided to add their microphone modeling technology and you can choose between a ribbon and a condenser microphone to bring in with a blend knob.

I’m telling you, Yamaha created a great-sounding powerhouse of a guitar that’s utterly comfortable (the rolled edges of the ebony fingerboard are just tasty).

This guitar is a head-turner tone-wise and a comfortable instrument to play for hours in the studio or on stage.

But you wouldn’t buy a guitar of this caliber only because of how it looks, there’s much more than meets the eye about this instrument.

I tried it unplugged first and the Koa top does exactly what it should, it sits perfectly between the snappy generous high-end of Sitka spruce and the glorious low-end of mahogany. It brings some of that midrange that’s so common in spruce-and-mahogany guitars but offers a more defined type of midrange that’s uncanny if you’ve never played a Koa guitar before.

I think the perfect word to describe this guitar’s unplugged tone is balance. It’s a balanced-sounding guitar that’s neither into traditional Martin territory with those bigger-than-life low mids nor traditional Taylor territory with that magical, musical, jangly high-end.

What is very Taylor-like is the neck and the comfort of the smaller body. The cutaway and the narrower waist make it a nice guitar to play sitting on your lap or hanging from your shoulder. Moreover, the mahogany neck feels smooth to the hand and the ebony fingerboard brings that snap to the resulting sound we love so much.

The electronics on this guitar, mounted straight on the Koa side, are the Expression System 2. It works with a pickup that’s mounted behind the bridge so it helps capture some of that glorious unplugged sound. The usual volume and 2-band EQ are handy to enhance and control the guitar’s natural midrange.

Believe me, I tried it all with this guitar because it’s a joy to play. The fingerpicking was very musical and chords sounded huge. Although the guitar isn’t small in size it does feel like you don’t need to apply so much power to the picking hand to make it come alive.

Finally, although I’m not a fan of glossy finishes, the gorgeous lines of the Koa top deserve to be highlighted. I would definitely have one of these at home to blend with my mahogany Martin trying to find the perfect acoustic tone.

Martin’s idea with this guitar was to build a new instrument that could bridge the gap between an acoustic and an electric guitar.

The body shape was specially designed for those players who want to go high up the fretboard and play lead lines or chords beyond the 12^th fret. For this to happen, they had to reinvent the neck carve completely and make it so friendly to the hand you feel it goes up there on its own, just because it can.

I found myself shredding on this thing without even realizing it.

The body shape reminds me a bit of a Jazz Bass when compared to a P-Bass. It’s got that offset extra part coming out from the bottom that looks odd but feels so comfortable you don’t even notice.

Yes, this guitar is instantly familiar to the hands.

Acoustically, it’s not at the same level of clarity, definition, and superb tone I described above. This is a guitar with a solid Sitka spruce top, a fine Koa veneer on the sides and back, “selected hardwood” for the neck, and an ebony fingerboard.

You don’t get the definition and clarity of fully solid instruments but the neck is so thin and fast (Martin calls it the Low-Profile Velocity) that, along with the 16” radius, the whole thing is an open invitation to shred your heart out.

Eddie Van Halen called, he wants one sent to Guitar Heaven ASAP, lol.

Jokes apart, and to honor Uncle Ed I did just that, and, let me tell you that, although the unplugged definition and tone aren’t elite-level as the rest of the guitars on this list, the playability might make you choose this guitar over the rest.

The Heel-less Sure Align is the most comfortable neck joint I’ve played in my entire life.

Once plugged in, the Fishman MX-T system brings in some of that beautiful Martin-approved low-end and mixes it with some high-end magic that’s very important when playing live. I also loved the tuner placed inside the soundhole right at your sight with a perfect auto-silencing mechanism whenever you turn it on.

In my opinion, the SC-13 is a great Martin guitar that’s better for those who will play mostly plugged into a PA system or an acoustic amplifier. Plus, this guitar makes up for whatever it might lack in unplugged tones with the most comfortable acoustic guitar neck I’ve ever played.

I know what you’re thinking, and I was as skeptical as you are now when I first picked up this guitar. Let me do a quick spoiler here, though, I was as wrong as a man could possibly be. This Eastman Guitars AC522CE Grand Auditorium is an amazing instrument ready to give its lucky owner decades of playing joy.

This is an acoustic-only guitar (just like the D15M above), and the mahogany back and sides resonate just as evenly and musically as the Sitka spruce top does. The mahogany neck is topped with an ebony fingerboard which adds to the spruce’s snappy nature and brings out those upper mids even further.

This is quite different from most Martins that employ rosewood for the fretboard, a wood type that enhances the sweet, slightly dark, and melodic element in the resulting tone.

But before speaking about tone, let’s talk about how this guitar feels because Jane Larivee is a worldly renown luthier who has been making outstanding instruments since the late ‘60s and his talent is all over this guitar.

The neck is a mix of a C and a D shape and it sports a 16” radius which makes the guitar a highway for the fingers. I played complex stuff and it all felt like a walk in the park.

Also, although the OM shape isn’t as big as the dreadnought, this guitar is still very powerful. It’s no wonder this shape has been the guitar of choice for fingerpickers for decades. In that vein, you can try your most amazing tricks and the ebony fretboard with its flat radius will give you a huge canvas to paint any number of colors.

Believe me, I went from obvious open chords to some funky riffs with bar chords to some fingerpicking, complex arpeggios, and even some lead work (not so high on the fretboard because it doesn’t have a cutaway) and it all felt and sounded great.

Speaking of which, this guitar strikes a difficult balance between the generous lows of mahogany and the Sitka spruce with all its glorious upper midrange. Moreover, the level of clarity this guitar offers is enough to make you more conscious about your own playing; you can’t hide anywhere.

This was my first experience with a Larivee guitar in my hands and I hope it’s not the last because everything I heard about them before picking the first note were absolutely true.

This guitar is pure fire, go try one if you can, but beware, you might not be able to put it down. You’ve been warned.