Our In-Depth Review of the Taylor 800 Series

If you’re a fan of Taylor guitars, then you’ll definitely be into the 800 series. In many ways, it’s the brand’s crowning glory, and it’s a range that has a little more history to it than some.

Today, I’ll give you the full rundown on what the Taylor 800 series is, where it came from and what makes it special.

You may or may not know this, but the 800 series was the first ‘proper’ brand that Taylor made. This is the mid-70s, and for a more fully historical dive into this, please have a gander at my Brief History of Taylor Guitars blog.

In the meantime, the 800 series debuted in 1975 and comprised the dreadnought and the jumbo shapes. The reason for these shapes is that this was what Bob Taylor inherited as moulds from Sam Radding, the owner of American Dream. American Dream was the music shop Bob worked at, and the one that he and Bob Lustig bought to begin the story of Taylor guitars. Those two moulds came with the shop and so that’s what the 800 Series was inevitably made up from.

The Taylor 800 Series is the top tier group of guitars that Taylor offers outside of their custom shop instruments. The 800 series is seen as the flagship series, displaying much of the innovation, expertise and decorative/aesthetic that have put Taylor on the map. 

The 800 series is luxurious for sure, but they are still all about tone and playability, with the entire line using spruce and rosewood as their main ingredients. As acoustic aficionados know, this is a particularly successful combination of timbers, and befits a range that aims to offer a timeless sound with clear attack and an expansive low end.

There are also several special edition instruments, Builder’s Edition (spec’d by Taylor’s artisans with non-standard woods and appointments), anniversary models and Gold Label 800 series models. These all expand on the premise of the 800 series.

Taylor 800 Series guitars all begin with spruce and rosewood. In particular, it’s mostly Sitka spruce and Indian rosewood, which you’ll no doubt already recognise as two of the finest tonewoods in guitar building. Not only that, the actual combination of spruce and rosewood is one of the most celebrated for the accumulated sound they produce. One complements the other, and together they offer a tone that has both brightness and depth, richness and sheen. For many, it’s THE acoustic guitar sound.

Outside of these woods, Taylor use ebony for their 800 series fingerboards, sourced from their own facility in Cameroon. More of that next…

Taylor have displayed an awareness of sustainability for years. From their Urban Ash scheme a few years ago to their co-owning of the Crelicam ebony processing mill in Cameroon, Africa, Taylor have shown their support for sustainability by example. This is a great thing on a number of levels, but one brief point that I’ll share is in the company’s reframing of ‘streaky ebony’. In the past, all guitar companies looked for was the darkest, most uniformly black looking ebony. Since ebony isn’t always like that - it often has caramel colouring marbling running through it - lots of perfectly good ebony was left in the scrapyard, so to speak. 

Taylor were the first major builder to recognise this waste and begin a U-turn on the industry’s attitude towards the wood. They began using fingerboards with this streaky ebony, and made a virtue out of the unique individuality of every piece used. Nowadays, the guitar industry at large has followed this example, and that’s to be applauded. This is mentioned here since the Taylor 800 series makes a lot of use of ebony, so you’ll see this on certain examples. This level of both environmental and social responsibility is at the heart of the company.

The Taylor Builder’s Edition 800 series is a collection of instruments that actually change from time to time. The Builder’s Edition is a concept where Taylor’s artisans dream up new and interesting combinations of timbers and details for certain guitars. These special instruments are offered for a limited time, and then other variations replace them. 

In the case of the 800 series, there could be elements such as an edgeburst finish, gold hardware, intricate wooden binding and more.

Taylor’s Gold Label are a fairly new range of guitars that crosses a number of the brands series such as the 500 and 800 series. The idea around the Gold Label is to create a different sort of Taylor look and sound, without completely abandoning the company’s signature style.

Gold Label guitars take their inspiration from Pre War acoustic guitars, and those from the early 60s. These guitars obviously predate Taylor’s own history, so they are a sort of ‘what if?’ situation: the idea of what golden era Taylor guitars may have been like. 

Gold Label Taylors offer a different sound and a slightly different visual identity to the rest of the brand’s guitars, even going as far as having a different headstock logo. In terms of the 800 Gold Label guitars, there are a few beauties, including the 814ce Super Auditorium and the 817e Grand Pacific.

The Taylor 800 series is for any musician who appreciates high quality, timeless beauty, practical excellence and sonic brilliance. They are arguably the most definitive range of Taylor acoustics of all of the series, because it brings together the bodies, the timbers and the aesthetic in perhaps the most fully realised way. The 900 series is essentially a fancier rendering of the 800 instruments, and are actually slightly less representative of Taylor’s overall vibe if you ask me. They are pretty lovely though, and for guitarists who do want extra ornamentation, they are your top destination outside of custom ordered models.

But the 800 series still heavily emphasises the fact that they are instruments made for playing. They are expensive, high-end instruments, but they are no museum pieces: these are top quality tools for inspiring and performing.

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