Takamine is celebrating its diamond jubilee this year and to mark the occasion it is releasing a special limited edition acoustic guitar, the LTD2022.
The LTD2022 has a most stunning build, with a solid Sitka spruce top and highly figured Hawaiian koa on the back and sides. That deep black ebony fingerboard is studded with a few abalone dot markers, and bejewelled with a subtle diamond inlay at the 12th fret. It’s fancy, sure, but nothing too ostentatious.
King Louis XIV might appreciate the gold tuners, but Takamine does well not to overdo it with the abalone purfling and rosette. After all, this is a design inspired by the Takamine archive, in particular a classical guitar with a koa build that has been reimagined as a concert-sized, steel-strung acoustic electric guitar with a Venetian cutaway.
The electronics are old-school, too, with the CTF-2N pickup and preamp system referencing Takamine’s FET-driven preamp, aka ‘the Brownie.’
While those original Brownie preamps had a four-slider configuration, the CTF-2N has a trio of sliders controlling Low, High and Volume, with a -6dB/-12dB switch, notch filter, an onboard tuner and easier battery access, with the compartment nested in the preamp’s shoulder-mounted control panel.
As with all of these Takamine limited edition models, the spec will not be repeated – well, perhaps not for another 60 years at least. And sadly, it is a US-only release. Available now, the LTD2022 is priced $2,999 and ships with a case.
See Takamine for more details.
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