10 Best Acoustic Guitar Under $1000 in 2021 [Buying Guide]

Most of us start with cheap, few hundred-dollar guitars. But once you get good at it, you try a different type of guitar; you realize the differences in tone and playability. If you are an intermediate player but not sure which guitar you should take, well, my friend, you are in luck! In this article, we bring you the best 10 acoustic guitars under $1000. I do not order the list since it is impossible to say which guitar is better, and it is very subjective.

The line up at a glance

We’ve done in-depth loads of researches through many various products and chosen ten different models to compare. Have a look through all our pros and cons for each one to find your best acoustic guitars under 1000.

Our Picks For Top 10 Best Acoustic Guitar Under $1000

The Taylor Academy Series 12E is an amazing choice for early intermediate players. You can expect this guitar to be as good as the guitars from a higher price range. The guitar has a nice sound with a great build quality. It is a more high-frequency focused instrument.

The Taylor Academy Series 12E is a grand concert shaped guitar with Sitka Spruce top and Sapele back & sides. It has an academy series bracing and maple neck. The scale length is 632mm with 20 frets. The nut is made out of Tsuq, and the guitar comes with a Taylor ES-B pickup.

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The Fender Paramount PM-2 is an amazing guitar with good tonal and sound quality. It has a great vintage look. Though the guitar is not best suited for beginners because of the price. This one is better suited for people who want to travel with their guitar. The guitar particularly does not have any drawback other than it does not sound like a dreadnought. But the build quality of the guitar makes it up for it.

The Fender Paramount PM-2 is a sized parlor guitar. It features a solid Sitka spruce body top. The guitar features East Indian Rosewood back and sides Solid with Quartersawn Scalloped “X” bracing with a high Gloss body finish. The material used for the neck is mahogany with a C shape profile. There are 19 frets on the fretboard with a scale length of 24.75”. The guitar also features bone nuts, dual-action truss rod. You can find Fender ®/Fishman® PM System special electronics with the guitar. Other miscellaneous features include bound fingerboard, factory-mounted forward strap button with internal block reinforcement, modified fender traditional bridge, bone nut, and saddle.

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The Seagull Artist Mosaic is an amazing pure acoustic guitar. The guitar is almost perfect with one drawback; it does not feature any electronics. But the sound of the guitar is superb. The quality of the guitar is also excellent. For an almost premium guitar, the price is very reasonable and very much affordable.

The Seagull Artist Mosaic features a solid spruce top, solid Mahogany back and side with a semi-gloss finish. The body’s length is 19.8”. There are 21 frets available for playing with a scale length of 25.5”. The guitar does not feature any cutaway. Neck material is also Mahogany with rosewood fingerboard.

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The Fender Newporter Player features an amazing yet unique look on the acoustic. The guitar is very similar to an electric guitar, but as a matter of fact, it is an amazing acoustic guitar. It is a very popular choice among the players who are switching acoustic guitars from electric guitars. Besides, the guitar also got some interesting tone and sound even though it is not the loudest guitar unplugged. 

The Fender Newporter Player is a Newporter shaped guitar with mahogany back and sides and a solid Sitka Spruce top. The body has a nice glossy poly finish to it. The guitar’s neck profile is Slim C, and the material used to make the neck is mahogany. There are 20 frets on the guitar with a scale length of 25.6”. It comes with white dot inlays. Lastly, the nut material is Graph Tech® NuBone™.

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The Breedlove Solo Concert is a nice acoustic guitar with a great plugin option. The guitar features a nice mellow sound and a perfect cutaway with a high action drawback. But it can be fixed by taking it to any professional guitarist. It also features onboard tuner so you don’t have to worry if your guitar is out of tune and you don’t know how to tune.

The Breedlove Solo Concert features a solid Western Red Cedar top with Ovangkol back and sides. The neck is made out of Nato, and the fretboard material is African ebony.  There are 20 frets on the fingerboard with Mother of pearl inlays. Nut and saddle are both made out of pure bones.

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Yamaha FG850 is a traditional western shaped all-Mahogany guitar that gives the guitar a woody and warm design. It matches the unique richness in the mid-frequencies. It is extremely comfortable to play.

The Yamaha FG850 is a concert shaped guitar with no cutaway, which features a solid Mahogany top, back, and side. The guitar also has a C shaped, Nato wood neck. The scale length of the neck is 25 9/16”. The fingerboard is made out of rosewood and features 20fret. The tuning machine is a die-cast chrome system to assure tuning stability. The saddle and nuts are made out of urea. The body has a gloss finish, but the neck has a matte finish giving the guitar a nice visual.

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The Martin Road Series 000-10E is an amazing performing guitar that looks good. It got some of the premium guitars features making it our absolute favorite. The solid all-Sapele body gives the guitar a rich and full tone. It is ideal for using multiple techniques like fingerstyle because of the slim neck. Lastly, the Fishman MX-T electronics give an amazing tone while plugged-in.

The Martin Road Series 000-10E is a 000-14 fret sized guitar with Sapele top, back and side. It features a performing Artists neck shape with high-performance tapers. The top features cherry color with Modern Belly – Drop in Saddle bridge. There are 20 frets on the fingerboard, and the material used for the fretboard is FSC® Certified Richlite®. The fingerboard also features Mother-of-pearl Pattern dot inlays.

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The Seagull S6 original is an amazing intermediate guitar and loved by many for its bright and vibrant sound, perfect action, handmade quality, and lastly, for its high-quality material. The sound of the guitar is phenomenal and outshines many guitars from a higher price range. Because of its excellent action, it feels very comfortable and gives you higher-end guitar playability. Because of its unique headstock, the tuning stability is out of this world.

The Seagull S6 original comes with a solid cedar top. The top is pressure tested; it means the top is very strong. It gives the instrument a superior tone, great projection, and response. The back and the sides are made out of Canadian wild cherry woods, and the bridge and the fingerboard are made out of rosewood. The double function truss rod and compensated Tusq Graphtech nut and saddles are some of the guitar’s key features. It has a set neck joint with a silver leaf wood integrated neck. There are Pearloid dot inlays on the fingerboard from fret 1-12. The semi-gloss custom polish finish gives the guitar a very natural and beautiful look.

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The Martin LX1E Little Martin is an electric acoustic guitar. The best part is the guitar sound even better plugged in and packs a classic steel string punch while plugged in and unplugged. But it lacks the punch of a dreadnought. The durability gives the guitar portability, enough to easily use it as a travel guitar. The weightlessness is also one of the reasons why this guitar is loved by many.

The Martin LX1E Little Martin has a solid Sitka spruce top. The guitar top bracing comes with a modified one style top bracing pattern. The side and the back has a mahogany pattern with hpl textured finish to it. The neck has a modified low oval shape, and the fingerboard is made out of Richlite. The scale length is 23” with 20 frets. The width of the fingerboard at 12th fret is 2 1/16”. Bridge material is solid Morado, and lastly, the tuning machine is the Gotoh Nickle w/ Small Knobs.

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The Taylor GS Mini is a well set up guitar right out of the box. The size is perfect despite being small. It is also very loud. The great playability of the guitar gives the player a great feel while picking it up. The thin neck and the low action contributed a lot to its playability. The guitar’s sound is very rich, making it also the perfect choice for a travel guitar.

Taylor GS Mini Mahogany-L is a Taylor grand symphony mini shaped guitar with no cutaway. The top of the guitar is made out of Mahogany, but the sides and back are made out of layered Sapele. The bracing pattern of the guitar is a GS mini with a relief route. The shape of the neck is the Taylor GS mini profile with a genuine African ebony wood fretboard. It has 20 frets with a 23.5″ scale length. The body and the neck both come with a Matte 2.0 finish. The chrome GS mini tuning machines hold the tune for a long time. The complete package indicates a perfect inexpensive guitar.

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Criteria used for evaluation

Body shapes and woods

The guitar shapes affect both the sound and the playability. There are many guitar body shapes like the dreadnought, grand auditorium, orchestra, Parlor, and Jumbo. A parlor shaped guitar has a light, focused, and balanced sound. Grand auditorium and orchestra guitar shapes come in outstanding balance, projection, and volume.

They are usually not dependent on any plug-ins or amps. They tend to sound good on their own. The dreadnought guitars are larger in size and more focused on the low frequencies. It is highly famous among flat pickers. The body shapes also include cutaways. A single-cutaway can give you access to higher notes. It is more prominent among people who tend to play solo or leads. But guitar with no cutaways tends to have better volume and bass.

Different tonewoods sound and feel different. A good tonewood resonates better, gets better with age, and improves the visual. But it comes to us with no surprise; the definition of great sound is subjective as it depends on each individual’s genre and taste.

The spruce is the best choice for the top of the guitar. It gives the guitar tonal properties. Stika spruce is slightly harder than average spruce. The rosewood will be the perfect one for the back and side. It provides the guitar with a rich and warm tone. The Mahagonny is the more commonly used tonewood as it is famous for its durability. It is also renowned for producing subtle overtones and earthy midrange tonality.

Fingerboard and Neck

The neck of your guitar does not affect the tone. But it does put a huge difference when it comes to comfort. Acoustic neck usually has 12 or 14 fret necks. This number of frets is above the guitar body. On a 12th fret neck guitar, the 13th and 14th frets will be on the body.

Thus it will be harder to reach the high notes. Another factor is the neck joint. Most acoustic guitars come with a set neck, which is basically glued. Then there is a bolt-on neck. The advantages of bolt-on necks are they are replaceable, and the guitar with bolt-on necks are cheap. The dovetail neck joint is the best choice for acoustic guitars.

Dive tail necks are structurally strong. It also helps the vibration of your playing. It can somewhat give your instrument a warm and more fullness in sound. The fingerboard is an essential part of a guitar, and your fingerboard must be made out of high-quality material.

Woods used for the fingerboards are Rosewood, Maple, and Granadillo. Rosewood is more preferred for the majority of the player as it is naturally oily and a medium density wood. You can expect your guitar to be lightweight and smooth. The rosewood also provides a warm and soft tone.

The maple is more famous for its stunning visuals. Maple is very dense, and it’s a strong wood. Rosewood is better than maple because the maple fingerboard can be a bit sticky after the finish. So it should come to us with no surprise, you should choose an acoustic with rosewood fingerboard rather than a maple fingerboard.

Acoustic-Electric

A pure acoustic guitar is more focused on the unplugged sound, whereas an acoustic with a plug-in system, yes, of course, focuses more on the plugged-in sound. An excellent acoustic guitar usually comes with a preamp to make the sound stronger. The preamp also comes with a tuner, volume, and tone control.

So if you plan on playing in an unplugged show or just to play for your own, you can go with pure acoustic guitars from the list. The acoustic-electric guitars are more suitable for plugged performances.

Well, you’ve reached the end of the article. I hope our article helped you in some way. The $1000 guitar features guitars, some of the pre-premium or post-beginner level guitars. Some of these guitars can be unique and well-directed; I hope you find the one that is well suited for your taste and need. Thank you for reading.

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Frequently Asked Questions