Which Taylor Acoustic Guitar Should I Buy?

You’re in the market for a Taylor guitar? Good choice, they are a pretty excellent brand! You’ll have heard about how innovative they are, and about how well designed and carefully built each Taylor guitar is. You’ve heard enough to know that Taylor is the brand for you, but with so many models out there, how do you know which one to go for?

Here’s where I can help. For years, I have played and sold Taylor guitars to hundreds of guitarists. I’ve chatted to CEO Andy Powers and tested tools on Taylor’s own workshops. All of this experience puts me in a good position to be able to offer advice to you on how to choose your ideal Taylor.

Not all guitarists are alike in their needs. For some, they want one incredible heirloom instrument to accompany them through life. Others like to choose from a selection of guitars, picking the correct tool for the job. Most of us are somewhere in between.

Today’s blog will be organised into a few subjective areas such as ‘affordable Taylor’ and ‘semi-pro gigging player’ etc etc. I’m thinking of the different types of guitarist that exist out there, and what they might want. If you fit one of these, then great! If not, please take my examples and see how they might apply at least partly to your own situation. I feel like the advice and suggestions will still prove useful to you!

Okay, let’s do this!

This category is enormously popular. It’s about guitarists who have played for a few years, upgrading their instrument now and then as the skills progress. When players get to the stage of appreciating tone and feel, they normally want to invest in a higher quality guitar. This is where Taylor comes into their lives, and to my thinking, there are two general ways to go here…

Firstly, there’s the ‘definitive’ Taylor shape, the Grand Auditorium. Taylors with a name ending in ‘4’ will have this shape, and I recommend the Taylor 214ce here. Why? Well, I’ve summarised it below in the box, but my thoughts are that the Grand Auditorium shape (GA from here on) combines the best elements from both larger acoustics such as the dreadnought, and smaller styles like the parlour. You get a more compact, snug shape but don’t lose out on projection. 

You also get the tone benefits of the solid spruce top, alongside the value of a cheaper layered rosewood body, as opposed to a solid timber rosewood body. It's true that solid rosewood sounds better, yes, but it costs a lot more! Taylor offers that higher up in their line of course, but I think the price point here is met by a guitar that performs very well indeed, and will serve any guitarist excellently.

As an alternative, I would recommend checking out one of Taylor’s dreadnoughts. There’s a lot of reasons why this shape is the world’s most popular acoustic style, not least their ability to project sound and fill a room sonically. Taylor are great at making them. 

In fact, I feel like it’s worth mentioning their Academy series here, and the Taylor Academy 10e model. This range is talked about as being for ‘newer players’ due to the great price and lack of decoration, but I see these as being a very savvy choice for any guitarist on a budget. You still get a solid spruce top, good ES-B electronics and even something a little special in the form of an armrest bevel! This is a comfort consideration, and isn’t available outside the Academy range until quite high in the Taylor catalogue!

This ‘category’ is basically the next step up from the last one. This is for guitarists who may not be looking to go professional, but are nonetheless deeply committed players. They want quality, performance, beauty and longevity. They are willing to pay more as long as the instrument justifies it. 

Does that sound like you? If so, I think you’d love this…

This beautiful GA model is the Taylor 724ce. The ‘7’ series are all made with tropical Hawaiian koa, which looks incredible and sounds similar to mahogany. This means a rich, deep tone with lots of warmth. In my opinion, it takes a more advanced player to bring out the subtle tonal benefits of koa: it’s not an immediate thing like spruce & rosewood, so I believe more experienced guitarists will really enjoy the interplay of tones here.

The top, back and sides are all koa, and so there’s a huge possibility for dynamic playing and response, all controlled by the player and handled by a superbly-built instrument.

It’s also drop-dead gorgeous, so it’ll make an impact on whomever sees it, long before the first note is even plucked! There are some lovely details here, from the stained maple pickguard (what a cool and obvious idea!) to the lovely bronze tuning pegs. It’s a guitar of beauty, and one that will continue to reward you year after year.

In this category, there are a great many Taylors that would be suitable. It’s one of the company’s main strengths in fact: almost everything they make is ready to go straight onto a stage and sound great. In that regard, go with whatever you like that has a built-in pickup and you’ll be set! 

Because of this, I’d like to be a little more specific. I’m going to recommend a guitar for gigging singers who want to be able to fill a room with glorious sound, whilst having the sonic space for their vocals to fit into the mix. Whether solo or as part of an ensemble, the following Taylor is what I suggest you try out…

This stunning Taylor Legacy 815e is a large bodied jumbo made to company founder Bob Taylor’s preferred specifications. My thinking here is that, as a performer, a jumbo guitar not only makes a huge, stunning, percussive sound, but is visually very cool to have on stage. Bigger guitars just go down really well visually, and every little bit helps during a performance!

Now, one of the many lovely things about this 815e is its main ingredients: Sitka spruce and Indian rosewood. Spruce and rosewood are a timeless combination, and the natural midrange ‘scoop’ that they tend to provide is just perfect for singers, because it naturally carves out a little bit of frequency for your voice to fill.

Gigging players will love the easily adjustable neck (previously known as the ‘NT neck’), because life on the road can play havoc on instruments. Being able to make small adjustments on the move can be the difference between a good gig and a stressful one. Finally, the fitted LR Baggs Element VTC pickup system breaks with modern Taylor tradition by using a third party for the electronics. The Element system is outstanding though, so it works out great for you, the player!

Are you looking for a fun, inspiring guitar to keep close by and just grab when you have a second to pick out some notes? Do you want a guitar that you can take pretty much anywhere and enjoy? 

I know one that fits the bill.

Taylor fans will most likely predict the guitar I’m going to feature now. This is because it is the best-selling Taylor guitar in history. Everybody loves it! I am, of course, talking about the astonishingly popular Taylor GS Mini. Since its release, it has been a major success, and the main reason for that is that it’s just an absurdly playable, great-sounding, fun guitar.

But what is it? Okay, it’s a slightly downsized version of the brand’s large bodied Grand Symphony model (hence GS Mini), and the idea around this was to make a guitar that was portable, without suffering in the tone department. So many so-called ‘travel guitars’ sound thin and lifeless as a byproduct of slimming and shrinking, but the GS Mini - designed by Taylor’s Andy Powers - used physics and ingenuity to offer a downsized guitar that has plenty of bottom end and projection.

In reality, many guitarists have a GS Mini as their one and only acoustic, such is the sound quality and playability! There are various versions to be had with wood choices and pickups fitted or not, so it is worth checking out a few varieties if this sounds like your thing. As many thousands of guitarists have found, it IS their thing, so make sure you don’t overlook it, even if your mind’s eye has been focussed on something else from Taylor.

And so to the final section of my Taylor buying guide. This is for those of you who want to commit to investing a sizable chunk of money on a guitar that will be your companion for life. A special, top-end instrument built with the greatest materials by the best builders, and featuring some sublime decoration. 

We’re talking luxury here, and I have just the thing for you…

If there is one word for the Taylor Builder’s Edition 912ce Sinker Redwood & Honduran Rosewood guitar, then it’s this: delicious. This is an exquisite meal of a guitar, with the perfect blend of understatement mixed with a few licks of bling. It’s a stunner, but that’s not why I chose this for you today. 

I chose it for three other reasons. Firstly, the story. The Redwood used for the top was found as a sunken log in a riverbed. This is the cost of doing business in the timber trade: you chop trees into logs and float them downriver from sawmill to sawmill, and along the way you lose a few to the river. Decades later, they’re found and used in things like guitar tops, where those juicy river nutrients affect the wood’s resulting tone in a number of fascinating ways.

My second reason for choosing the 912ce is its size. This is what Taylor term their Grand Concert body, which is smaller than the GA style we’ve been seeing today. On top of that, the scale length is a tiny bit shorter too, and both of these factors combine to make this a very intimate instrument for the player. You cradle this and pick out stunningly dynamic notes, revelling in the complex and lush sound that such an instrument generates. Sometimes, I think guitars play you - as opposed to you playing them - but on this occasion, the Taylor 912ce subtly suggests how it wants to be played. For some reason, it’s like a close, intimate version of a grand piano, if such a thought even makes sense?

Put it this way: try one for yourself and you’ll be as stuck for appropriate terms as I am! That piano-like tone - as full of harmonic richness as you could wish for - is my third reason for choosing this guitar. Before and after every other reason, it just simply sounds wonderful.

Today’s blog has six Taylor guitars for your perusal and consideration. In reality, if I wrote this again, I might well choose six entirely different models that all still fit each bill perfectly. This is because Taylor offer lots of variety, at many price points, and all of their guitars are very good. It makes it actually tricky to write blogs like this, as there can be a lot of crossover: maybe the 214ce is your perfect ‘couch guitar’; or maybe the 724ce is something you want to take on stage?

The fact of the matter is, I agree with all of that! Use this blog as a starting basis for your own journey, and as always, take what you need from it and leave the rest. Try the guitars for yourself, trust your own senses and you’re sure to pick the correct guitar for your needs.

Good luck and have fun!

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