Taylor 14ce Sapele Acoustic-Electric Guitar

Grand Auditorium Body: Taylor's most popular and versatile body shape, the mid-size Grand Auditorium arrived in 1994 bearing refined proportions that fell between a Dreadnought and Grand Concert. While the bigger Dreadnought was traditionally considered a flatpicker’s guitar and the smaller Grand Concert catered to fingerstylists, the GA was designed to deliver on both fronts. The shape produced an original acoustic voice that was big enough to handle medium-strength picking and strumming, yet with impressive balance across the tonal spectrum, especially in the midrange, producing clear, well-defined notes that suited both strumming and fingerstyle playing. The GA’s overall presence tracks well with other instruments both in a studio mix and on stage, and singer-songwriters have embraced its utility both for composing and traveling with one guitar. Many people want a single guitar that can cover a variety of styles, which is why the GA continues to be Taylor's bestselling shape. If you want a great all-purpose guitar, the multi-dimensional GA won’t let you down.

Grand Auditorium Body Specifications: Body Length: 20" / Body Width: 16" / Body Depth: 4 5/8"

Sapele Body Wood: Sapele’s tonal output is consistent and balanced across the tonal spectrum, making it compatible with a diverse range of playing styles. It’s comparable to mahogany but its higher density tends to produce a slightly brighter sound with more top-end shimmer.

Origin: Central Africa

Sound: An alternative tonewood that joined the Taylor fold over a decade ago. It’s sometimes mistakenly referred to as African mahogany because it closely resembles the West African wood khaya, which is commercially known as African mahogany. Sapele is a highly sustainable, relatively fast-growing wood. Tonally, it does everything that mahogany does, with a little extra treble zing. Taylor will be able to offer it for a long, long time.

Goes Well With: Everything. Like ovangkol, it’s a great all-purpose tonewood that will deliver a consistent, balanced tone in a variety of playing applications, from fingerstyle to strumming.

The Taylor Neck: The Taylor Neck, originally called the NT Neck, was an original Bob Taylor innovation that grew from a foundation of slender, hand-friendly bolt-on necks and changed how builders and players think about acoustic guitar design. Optimized for exceptionally easy, precise adjustability, the NT Neck came to be known as a defining feature of Taylor guitars for decades to come.

Three-Piece Configuration: By crafting necks in three pieces—shaft, peghead and heel, all cut from the same block—we can create remarkably consistent necks that are straight, stable and durable. The three-piece design also helps reduce wood waste, increasing the yield from each tree harvested.

Slim Profile, Low Action: From the beginning, Taylor has always prioritized playability with slender necks designed to bring out your best. Every Taylor Neck features a comfortable profile that minimizes hand fatigue, whether you’re a beginner learning your first chords or a pro fretting complex arrangements.

A Perfect Setup, Every Time: Because the Taylor Neck’s three-bolt assembly secures the neck to the body without glue, a technician can easily and quickly remove the neck and adjust its angle for perfect sound, string height and tonal transfer, a process that takes minutes instead of days or weeks.

Torrefied Spruce Top Wood: By far the most popular and common wood used for acoustic guitar tops, spruce has a long heritage in the music world. In typical Taylor style, Taylor developed their signature recipe for a process called “torrefaction” to make spruce sound even richer and more sophisticated, adding a new dimension to this much-loved wood.

Torrefaction is a process in which spruce tops (before being added to guitar bodies) are roasted in ovens typically used for drying out wood so that it can be worked. The roasting process lends the wood a slightly darker visual hue while also altering its structure slightly to give it new sonic traits. In particular, torrefied spruce tops tend to sound warmer and sweeter, giving them a played-in quality you would expect from a much older piece of wood. While torrefaction cannot replicate the effects of decades of age and play, it does provide a touch of extra sonic depth without losing spruce’s trademark clarity, articulation or volume.

Origin: Canada and Alaska

Goes Well With: Virtually all musical genres and playing styles.

Fishman Presys VT: The Fishman Presys VT acoustic-electric preamp and pickup system blends clear, faithful acoustic tone with exceptional value, helping keep select Taylor guitars at an accessible price point for beginners and players in need of a reliable practice instrument.

This undersaddle pickup system features an active soundhole-mounted preamp with dual volume and tone controls and is powered by a standard 9-volt battery. Like other pickup/preamp systems included in Taylor guitars, the Fishman Presys VT utilizes a discrete input jack connected to the guitar’s end pin.

Venetian Cutaway: The Venetian cutaway is known for its soft, round lines. The sloping peak of the cutaway will vary depending on the shape of the body. The Grand Concert and Grand Auditorium have a steeper slope, while the Dreadnought is a bit flatter. Taylor's Grand Concert nylon-string models also feature a subtle, flatter slope, while Taylor's 200 Series cutaway models incorporate their flattest slope.