- Superb built quality
- An alternative, unique design approach for jumbo acoustic guitars
- Easy to play, big sounding jumbo acoustic guitar
- Mind you, due to the increased body size, jumbo-style acoustic guitars may not be a good pick for everybody
Hello there, back again with another acoustic guitar review for you! This time, we will be looking at a Takamine GN51CE, which is an acoustic-electric guitar with NEX style body shape.
Table of Contents
As most of you know, there are many types of acoustic guitar body forms such as dreadnought, concert, jumbo and parlour…etc. Among all of these designs, the jumbo acoustic guitars are the biggest in sound and body volume. However, it has some downsides as the body is pretty difficult to hold and control for some guitar players. 
Takamine has done an excellent job with an alternative solution with its NEX body design. Takamine GN51CE features a NEX body with a cutaway and offers you the jumbo vibe and timbre while keeping the body size manageable. According to the company, this unique body design is a scaled-down jumbo body form and guarantees a balanced tone that supports vocalists most elegantly. 
Sound Demo (no talking)
Before I provide tech specs of the instrument, let’s have a quick listen to our demo. We played sample tunes to demonstrate the instrument and captured the audio with a Rode VideoMic Pro.
Tech Specs
| Takamine GN51CE | Tech Specs |
|---|---|
| Design | NEX with Cutaway |
| Top | Solid Spruce |
| Bracing | Quartersawn x Bracing |
| Back and Sides | Walnut |
| Neck | Mahogany |
| Fretboard | Ovangkol (*Laurel: According to Takamine's website) |
| Number of Frets | 20 Frets |
| Scale | 643 mm |
| Nut Width | 42.8 mm |
| Tuners | Die-cast |
| Bridge | Ovangkol |
| Pickup System | Takamine TP-4TD w/ tuner |
| Rosette | Abalone |
| Hardware | Gold-plated |
| Strings | D'Addario EXP16 .012 - .053 |
| Colour | Natural High Gloss |
As you may have already known from my articles here, I’m a big fan of Takamine acoustic guitars, and during my countless encounters with many models, I always enjoyed how they felt and played. The quality assurance of the Takamine company is top-notch! There are not many companies out there that can come close to them in terms of consistency. The build quality always offers a higher value than you pay. Even shipping their instruments with D’Addario coated strings is always a nice gesture, so when you open the guitar box, you know what you will discover: No rusty strings 🙂 The preamp system used on Takamine GN51CE carries all the goodness of their design, placed towards the neck side rather than in between the body. If you are to record your acoustic guitars directly into your audio interface, I’m pretty sure it will never let you down. 
On top of this, when you check the tech specs of this instrument, you will notice that they use solid tonewoods on the top, back and sides. This is something you will only see on a good-quality instrument. The term “solid“, generally speaking, is an important word that indicates the manufacturer uses real wood rather than compressed wood. 
Last but not least, the price tag! As you can see, it’s been very well priced and fills an important gap for acoustic guitarists who consider purchasing a well-built instrument rather than the very entry-level guitars that don’t offer much but a lower price. I personally don’t really like jumbo acoustic guitars as an average-sized human being.
I always found them very big to handle, and I felt like I was not able to control the instrument. In my Chicken Picks review video, I had the chance to play with a Fender CD290 SCE jumbo acoustic guitar, and I remember struggling every time I tried to record the guitar parts. However, Takamine GN51CE never feels that way. The NEX body design is a really unique and scaled-down version of a regular jumbo body design. If you also love the jumbo acoustic guitar tones but are not into one because of the body form, I would definitely recommend you check out the Takamine GN51CE as an alternative solution to this need. 
Pricing & Availability
Takamine GN-51CE is still actively manufactured and widely available across many music stores online. Naturally, Thomann offers the best pricing with the latest iterations featuring different finishes of this guitar.
Check out the Takamine GN51-CE on Thomann here
You may also want to check out Reverb, as there are many used and brand new GN-51CE acoustic guitars listed there.
Check out the Takamine GN51-CE on Reverb here
Lastly, you may want to check out Amazon. Although it is very difficult to find any Takamine on Amazon, there are usually some models listed there, too. You may be on your lucky day and order this from Amazon! 🙂
Check out the Takamine GN51-CE on Amazon here
I hope this article has been helpful for you in your acoustic guitar purchases. Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
