My new Emerald X20 carbon fiber acoustic guitar arrived on Saturday, and let me not bury the lede, I absolutely love it. The best acoustic I personally have ever played. Now for the longer version.
In 2009 I purchased a Rain Song carbon fiber acoustic which I did quite like and that I played until 2025. Though I loved a lot about it, something never really fully bonded with me. I always felt like I had to fight it a bit. It had a very flat 20″ radius fretboard which just wasn’t the best for my hands. Also, as a traditionally shaped acoustic, my right forearm would always be bruised after a gig from resting on the edge of the body and being a fairly energetic player. I felt like the action could have been lower, but a luthier had already taken the saddle down about as far as possible, and in fact had to file a slight slot in the bridge to accommodate even getting the high E that low. There was no truss rod to adjust because carbon fiber guitars are rigid enough that they don’t need one. Strangely enough, Rain Song later changed their neck design to incorporate one just because guitarists were so used to having one that they didn’t like a neck with no truss rod, even if it wasn’t needed.
At some point in 2025, I can’t even remember why, I started looking up information about it on the internet and found out that Rain Song had shut down. Lots of people were talking about Emerald acoustic guitars, an Irish company who I had never heard of, as now being the best carbon fiber guitars around, so I started researching out of pure curiosity. Eventually I decided that I really thought I needed one and that it very well might be a “forever” guitar for me. The company seemed to be a really great small company who put a lot of thought and care into their instruments and design.
Some things that caught my interest were that the bodies were designed very ergonomically. A nice forearm bevel for comfort. Contoured back so it was comfortable against your body. A contoured bottom edge so that it sat at a more natural angle on your leg when sitting. Stainless steel frets so you would never need a fret job done on it. A slightly less flat 16″ radius. Their neck do have a truss rod, though I suspect it’s for the same reason Rain Song added one, just because guitarists freak out at the idea of no truss rod. I believe I read somewhere that Emerald as said they don’t “need” one but put it there just as another adjustment option. There are many more options for customization as well. You could pick one from their stock or use the “guitar builder” on their site to build one totally customized to your liking, which of course means you’ll be waiting longer to get it. I chose the custom route. An absolute bare bones acoustic will run you about $2600 at the time of this post. Every option you add from there adds to the price. Various pickup options, many gorgeous wood veneer options purely for aesthetics, “vibrant” carbon weave colors, fretboard and inlay options, custom neck radius or width options, all available at a premium.
I kept it fairly simple. I added an adjustable bridge like an electric with individual saddles so you can adjust string height and intonation very easily. I also chose to have a dual pickup system where the saddles are Ghost Piezo saddles, and there are also K&K Mini transducers on the soundboard. This is a really great combo as the piezos (which sound as good as any piezo I’ve ever heard) give you great top end and cut through the mix, while the K&K transducers give you warmth and a more natural acoustic sound. I also chose a green carbon weave at no additional cost as I had no desire to hide the carbon weave under a wood veneer, for a total of $2845 but I got $100 discount for being a first time customer, so $2745.
I placed my order on October 9, 2025 and knew I was looking at about a 6 month wait most likely. I also sold my trusty Rain Song to a new happy home to help finance my new guitar. It showed up in one of Emerald’s shipping videos on January 16, 2026. I knew that to not have to deal with tariffs and such, the guitar would have to go by ocean from their Ireland factory to New Jersey (I think), then by truck to Emerald’s new Florida showroom, and then by truck to me. It cleared customs on March 1, shipped from Florida on March 11 and arrived to me on March 14.
I had a gig that night so I unboxed it, played a few chords on it, and headed out to the gig where I would be using it on the first song of the night. When I got it hooked up at sound check, I thought 1 of the 2 pickup systems wasn’t working which was a major bummer. Was I going to have to send it all the way back to Ireland or maybe get my local luthier to fix it at their cost hopefully? Luckily not. Turns out the problem was a very niche situation. The dual pickup system has a volume for each system. You can use a standard cable to send both mixed to one source or you can use a stereo TRS cable and a Y splitter to send each system to separate sources if you want. I was using my Line 6 G10 wireless unit, forgetting that the transmitter has a TRS tip but uses one side for audio and the other side for charging. So the guitar saw TRS and was trying to send the piezo pickup to part of the tip just meant for charging. When I tried it out with a regular cable at home, all was well. I did use it for 4 songs at the gig with just the K&K pickup and it sounded great.
Over the 3 days since the gig, I have played this guitar a lot, getting to know it and absolutely falling in love with it. I am constantly inspired to pick it up and play it just for fun even if I’m not specifically working on something for a gig. It is the most comfortable and playable acoustic I’ve ever played. Every Emerald goes through their “PLEK” process where a machine gets the frets and action set up with incredible precision, and then of course it gets hand finished to perfection. I got this guitar knowing that its main use would be live gigs plugged in and amplified, so while the actual acoustic sound wasn’t my highest priority, I did hope it wouldn’t fall short there, and personally I don’t think it does. I really like the acoustic sound as well. I was worried that I might have been a bit spoiled by my Rain Song which had a great acoustic and was the loudest acoustic I had ever heard. The Emerald has an offset sound hole on the upper bout that channels sound to the player as well as out front to any listeners so it definitely sounds loud to me when I’m playing it, though I’m not sure exactly how it compares when listening from the front. Obviously it’s all subjective and comparing two guitars can be very difficult, especially since I don’t have the Rain Song any more to directly compare side by side, but I definitely don’t think I could be happier with my Emerald. I used it plugged in for a rehearsal tonight and was ecstatic with the sound I got out of it.
It also came in a really nice TKL hard case that is fitted absolutely perfectly. And as a bonus “Thank you,” Emerald included a beautiful hand-made mug from Moville Pottery in Ireland. I love that I once again have the excitement and desire to grab this guitar and play it all the time. It has most definitely met or exceeded all expectations and I hope to be playing it a lot in the coming year as I want to get more solo acoustic gigs happening and actually start playing my long-neglected originals live.
