Taylor 50th Anniversary Builder's Edition 814ce

The 50th-anniversary 814ce Builder’s Edition features beautiful premium solid tonewoods: a sinker rosewood top, Indian rosewood back and sides, a neo-tropical mahogany neck, and — demonstrating Taylor’s commitment to sustainability — a Crelicam ebony fingerboard, bridge, and headstock overlay. Based in Cameroon, Crelicam is an international supplier of high-quality West African ebony that has raised the bar for socially and environmentally responsible forest resource management in the country. The company’s support for scientific research and replanting efforts helps cultivate a healthy forest economy for Cameroon.

Bracing is the internal framework of an acoustic guitar that helps shape its sound. Although X-bracing has been standard in acoustic guitars for over a century, it creates an innate conflict between two key elements of a guitar’s sound: volume and sustain. The guitar’s top (its soundboard) contributes to both. The flexibility of the top generates volume (projection), while its stiffness generates sustain. And with X-braced guitar tops, here’s where the tradeoff comes in: when something is made stiffer, its flexibility is reduced (and vice versa). V-Class bracing changes all that.

Taylor’s beloved Grand Auditorium body style, featured on the 50th-anniversary 814ce Builder’s Edition, employs the width and depth of a dreadnought, so it delivers prodigious volume that makes it a “tone cannon” in its own right. However, its waist is narrower, which gives Grand Auditorium-bodied acoustic guitars more treble zing, in addition to improved playing comfort and a sleeker look. The 814ce’s Grand Auditorium body style also helps to sharpen the definition of each note you play, balancing out nicely with the excellent projection of its V-Class-braced Sitka spruce top.