25 Best Selling Dreadnought Acoustic Guitars For Beginners

Hello there! Back again with another helpful comparison and a review of 25 best selling dreadnought acoustic guitars for beginners and intermediate guitar players.

In this article, you will not only find some information on acoustic guitars but also have a chance to compare 25 best-selling acoustic guitars in different price ranges.

Acoustic guitars are probably one of the most popular instruments in this era we are living in!

To be honest, I haven’t done detailed research on this particular topic however after having looked up some relevant searches on Google, I have found out that guitars are always in the top 3 of any popular musical instruments lists!

You may also just have a look on the internet as well as in physical musical instruments stores and hopefully, be able to see how guitars are dominating almost every possible place! 🙂

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This is why I have decided to provide you with a helpful, detailed and easy-to-understand acoustic guitar buying guide!

Before we go into brands and models, I would like to talk about acoustic guitars in terms of their anatomy, structure and their components so you will have a better understanding of acoustic guitars.

The Anatomy of Acoustic Guitars

Acoustic guitars consist of different parts and components. To fully understand what these parts are and how they function, we need to go through these parts briefly.

I have just created an image below for you to see these components if you are not already familiar with them. This image is featuring a dreadnought acoustic guitar with a built-in preamp and tuner by Ibanez.

If you want to have a more in-depth insight into this instrument, please check out the full review of this Ibanez PF15ECE.

From a fundamental perspective, we can easily say that an acoustic guitar consists of a body and a neck.

These parts are of course formed by a combination of many other components. That’s why we need to go into a bit more detail in the next section.

Body

Acoustic guitar bodies can be considered as the resonance chamber of the instrument.

Soundhole

On the top wood, you have your soundhole (this is where you drop your picks into :)) that not only amplifies the sound, helps to improve the vibration of the top wood but also functions as a release path of internal resonance.

Top, Back and Sides

The body of an acoustic guitar is formed by the back, sides and top wood shaped and merged into a particular body shape. You might come across a couple of body shapes that might slightly differ from different manufacturers.

However, most likely you will see dreadnought, jumbo, auditorium, concert, concert and parlour body shapes.

As you can see from the image above, the body part has been pointed from the rear view of the instrument.

*However, actually it has a side and a back part as well. The wood and materials used to form acoustic guitar bodies will drastically add different sound characteristics to the instrument.

*In this article, we will be specifically looking at dreadnought body acoustic guitars regardless of whether they feature an onboard preamp/tuner, cutaway or other attributes.

Bridges, Saddles and Bridge Pins

Acoustic guitar bridges including saddles and bridge pins are mounted on top of acoustic guitars as you can see from the image.

Onboard Preamp and Tuner

Depending on your choice of instrument, you might also have an onboard preamp and digital tuner generally mounted upper part of the sides where you can adjust EQ settings and tune your guitar.

Rosette

Almost with every acoustic guitar, you will likely have a rosette surrounding the soundhole which is decorative and sometimes reinforcing the hole.

Pickguard

Right under that, you may also see an acoustic guitar pickguard attached to the body which protects the part that gets the most hits by your picking hands.

Cutaway Design

Lastly, you may have a cutaway form that makes it easier to reach higher frets on the neck.

Neck

The neck part of a guitar is actually where you hold your guitar with your fretting hand. The neck consists of the fretboard on which your fingers are pressing and altering the pitch of each string.

Fretboard or Fingerboard

On the fretboard or fingerboard, you have your frets which help to produce different pitches on the instrument. Acoustic guitars usually come with 20 frets made of nickel alloys or stainless steel material.

Headstock and Tuners or Tunning Pegs

The guitar necks also have a headstock where guitar tuners or tuning pegs are located.

Nut

Lastly, you will see the nut that maintains the spacing of the strings and sets up their distance from the fingerboard and the height of them from the headstock end.

The guitar nuts are usually made of plastic, bone and many other materials such as brass, synthetic materials or many others. The material used in nuts will definitely add a touch of sonic character to an instrument.

Tonewoods Used On the Top, Fingerboard, Back and Sides of Acoustic Guitars

As I have mentioned in the previous section, different types of wood and their combinations of them will result in different sonic characteristics. There are dozens of natural wood combinations as well as laminated wood and synthetic materials.

Laminated and Solid Woods

If you have a look at the tech specs of entry-level or the cheapest acoustics guitars in the market, you will most likely come across laminated woods.

Laminated woods are made of multiple layers of thin wood that are bonded together.

On the other hand, if you have a look at the intermediate instruments, you will most likely notice solid wood used on the top and/or back and sides.

In this section, we will go through popular woods and how they affect the overall sound of guitars.

Spruce

Spruce is probably the most common choice for acoustic guitars top. It is pretty lightweight and strong at the same time which makes it a highly preferred tonewood for all-around acoustic guitar tones.

These attributes also help the instrument to be responsive and to have a wide range of dynamics for a variety of playing styles.

You will also notice Sitka Spruce used in some of the guitars in the comparison table below. It has more or less the same sonic qualities as just spruce, however, note that there may be slight differences in hardness and density.

Cedar

Cedar is another popular tonewood that you will come across. It is not always to distinguish these woods by a quick glance, however, cedar comes with a slightly darker colour than spruce.

Cedar has a nice, lighter attack which makes it a great choice for fingerstyle guitar playing styles. So this is why it is preferred for classical and flamenco nylon string guitars.

Rosewood

Rosewood is without a doubt one of the most commonly used tonewoods in guitar manufacturing. If you have ever researched acoustic and electric guitars, you would notice that rosewood is not only the most popular fretboard material but also widely used in acoustic guitar sides, back and neck parts of a guitar.

Rosewood is well-known for its even response across all frequencies with some dark characteristics to it. It is also able to produce complex overtones with a clear high-frequency response.

Mahogany

Mahogany is another highly popular tonewood which commonly used on the back and sides of an acoustic guitar. You will also come across mahogany on the neck part of guitars (not the fretboard material!) as well.

Its dense structure and ability to compress the tone (you can think of compression as the ability to manage the dynamics of your instrument) make it an excellent choice to pair with spruce tops as the mahogany will add fullness and depth to spruce’s higher frequency response.

On the other hand, when it’s used as a top wood, mahogany will help to produce more punch in the guitar tone.

Sapele

Sapele is an alternative tonewood and it’s highly sustainable due to its fast-growing abilities. It produces very similar sonic results as mahogany with an added extra higher frequency response.

Walnut

Walnut is one of the most popular tonewoods of guitar manufacturers. It produces an excellent rich tone while having tighter grains which results in a more stable build and sonic projection abilities. Also, most people will tell you that walnut looks great on guitars! On acoustic guitars, walnut is often used on the back and sides rather than on top.

Ovangkol

Ovangkol is a relative of rosewood from Africa. This wood features a wide sonic spectrum from lower to higher frequencies used in guitar tones. Goes well with many applications and is considered to be an all-around wood to manufacture guitars.

Agathis

Agathis is yet another tonewood used in most entry-level guitars coming from a pine family. It has a bad reputation among guitar players though. However, note that it all depends on the batch of the wood and how it has been processed. Since it’s widely available and easy to work with, you might notice agathis being used by many manufacturers.

Nato

Nato wood offers a similar appearance and characteristics to regular mahogany. Since it’s not really a costly wood, most guitar manufacturers use it on the back and sides.

Catalpa

Catalpha grows in North America and is known as an indigenous tree of the region. It is pretty lightweight and strong however its soft characteristics make it prone to dents while these make it quite resonant for the guitar’s back and sides.

Note that these tonewoods have a lot of varieties within the same family, so I just want to give you brief information on them so you will have a general idea. I really do not want to turn this review into a lecture on trees 🙂

Check out the best guitar pickup company, Seymour Duncan here!

Best Selling Dreadnought Acoustic Guitars by Price Range

If you are a regular visitor of cigilovic.com, you will know that I like to provide my visitors with detailed comparison tables that not only focus on sales ranks which can change at any given time but also feature unique attributes of products within different price ranges.

Most of the time, when people are to make a purchasing decision, they usually base these on their budgets.

So in my humble opinion, the best and most helpful idea when creating a guide is to set up price ranges that may or may not correlate with the number of sales.

I have also deliberately left some products that are within the boundaries of my comparison tables in order not to ignore great instruments that have excellent value/money ratios.

Also, do not forget to go to individual reviews of some instruments in the below tables that have been published before.

Remember folks, the content you are accessing here on this website is real!

Not like the typical copy-paste content made by some people who don’t have the faintest idea about the fine details of this beautiful industry! 🙂

Dreadnought Acoustic Guitars €63 to €198

The below table includes dreadnought guitars priced between €63 to €198 and also features the best-seller dreadnought acoustic guitar on the whole Thomann website!

Harley Benton is one of Thomann’s own brands and has been doing great!

To be honest, I haven’t had a chance to try one yet, however, according to the crazy amount of reviews and high ratings, it’s definitely worth checking out!

I highly suggest you visit the product page of Harley Benton D-120CE, and listen to the demo recordings.

At the price tag, I would consider this guitar an almost free instrument! Surprisingly, it even features an onboard preamp.

I can honestly say that I have played the rest of the models in the table below, probably dozens of times in a given month when I used to work in the MI industry. These are definitely high-value/money instruments and worth every cent.

*Visitors on mobile devices; Did you know that you can scroll the comparison tables horizontally? Try yourself with the below table!

Dreadnought Acoustic Guitars  €198 to €333

In the next table below, I have filtered dreadnought guitars priced between €198 to €333. Here you will notice a couple of excellent options from Takamine and Epiphone as well.

As a lucky guitar lover and a former MI pro, I have had the chance to play most of the models by Epiphone, Fender and Takamine in the cart below and I must say they will never let you down!

With the advanced production technologies that help to reduce manufacturing costs, you will get excellent value for the money you pay.

One of my favourite models here below is GD11MCE by Takamine. It features a natural satin finish and is one of the most resonant guitars I have ever tried.

I am also quite impressed by Fender’s “All-Mahogany” approach as seen in the CD-140SCE model. This model also is very resonant while maintaining very warm tones thanks to its all-mahogany build and complimenting walnut fretboard and bridge.

*Visitors on mobile devices; Did you know that you can scroll the comparison tables horizontally? Try yourself with the below table!

Dreadnought Acoustic Guitars  €333 to €2890

Lastly, you have your dreadnought acoustic guitar priced between €333 to €2890. Even though, it sounds like a huge jump from a medium price range to a higher price range, it’s always good to have some options for long-term investment in instruments.

This cart also features one of my all-time favourites by Takamine GD93CE. I highly suggest you check out its individual review by me and my former colleagues via the link below. As I have described in my review, it’s a piece of art and it’s priced way lower than the quality of its promises.

Last but not least, we have an interesting guitar by a French guitar manufacturer, Lag on our last table!

Again, I was the lucky one to have tried most of Lag‘s models (unfortunately, not the one below!) during my service in the MI industry thanks to the Turkish distributor, Zuhal Müzik! 🙂

Lag guitars have outstanding build quality even though they are manufactured in China. Even though the most popular Lag guitar models during my days were often the beginners/entry-level ones, I was blown away by the quality and the sonic characteristics of them every time I tried.

Lag Tramontane THV10DCE HyVibe definitely stands out among the others as it features built-in effects, loop function and speaker capabilities. It’s described as the world’s first smart guitar and can even turn into a Bluetooth speaker! Crazy stuff, right? 🙂

*Visitors on mobile devices; Did you know that you can scroll the comparison tables horizontally? Try yourself with the below table!

How Should I Choose My Acoustic Guitar?

Well, this is not an easy question to answer. However, I’m here to help you and make your life easier.

As I have mentioned in the beginning, most of the time, you should start by determining your budget.

Next, I would definitely consider if I wanted to make a longer-term investment in my purchase. This one usually confuses people since they think about their playing experience and level which may result in people stepping back.

However, I always recommend anyone aim at higher-segmented products rather than sticking with entry-level ones.

Imagine, you have set your budget around €300 which will enable you to buy crazy value/money instruments already.

But just think about it, if you can save another €300 in a month, two months or three months, you can easily jump to higher-segmented instruments.

Most people on the internet will tell you not to spend much on mid to higher-segmented guitars if you are just beginning. But I don’t agree with that. If you can, go for the higher-segmented products.

Why kill the joy from the beginning instead of having the pleasure to own better instruments and experiencing more beautiful sensations? Unlike guitarists’ myth going around, suffering on terrible instruments won’t make you a better player but practising and investing time in your instrument will! 🙂

Check out my other acoustic guitar reviews here

I hope this guide article and review of dreadnought guitars have been helpful to you! Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!

Osman Cenan Çiğil – cigilovic.com

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