Taylor’s commendable commitment to sustainability

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.

The Builder’s Edition collection

Taylor’s premium Builder’s Edition family of acoustic guitars is the brainchild of master guitar designer Andy Powers. Builder’s Edition guitars were created to highlight Taylor’s V-Class bracing system and to demonstrate Taylor’s most cutting-edge innovations. With a level of craftsmanship typically not offered on standard models, Builder’s Edition guitars provide players with an exemplary instrument that promises to inspire. According to Powers, “the Builder’s Edition concept is meant to be an expression of Taylor’s instrument-building imagination.” And what an incredible imagination it is!

V-Class bracing: a sonic revelation

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.

Optimized volume, sustain, and intonation

With Taylor’s V-Class bracing, an acoustic guitar top can be both stiff and flexible — for more volume and sustain. V-Class bracing provides stiffness parallel to the strings for more rigidity and hence sustain. Flexibility on either side generates the air movement necessary for robust projection. It’s the best of both worlds. This groundbreaking innovation also improves intonation; not only producing notes that are louder and with longer sustain — but more in tune with each other. V-Class bracing boosts volume evenly across the tonal spectrum, increases sustain, and improves the natural intonation of the instrument by creating a more synergistic response from the soundboard. This fosters a more harmonious relationship between the notes you play, helping chords to ring out in cohesive splendor. Pick up a Taylor with V-Class bracing and experience what guitarists at have already discovered.

Grand Auditorium body style delivers exceptional presence

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.

Cutting-edge Taylor Expression System 2 electronics

If you play plugged in, you’re going to love the Taylor Expression System 2 (ES2) electronics built into your 814ce. The key to this fantastic system is the 3-section proprietary pickup located behind the saddle. Because of where it’s positioned and how it’s integrated into the guitar’s saddle, the ES2 pickup provides you with remarkably clear and accurate sound. In addition to a master volume control, a pair of tone controls let you tweak your highs and lows to get the sound you need, and a discreet polarity switch offers vital onboard feedback suppression.

Taylor 50th-anniversary 814ce Builder's Edition Grand Auditorium Acoustic-electric Guitar Features:

• Environmentally responsible solid premium tonewoods
• Graceful beveled Venetian cutaway gives you unfettered access to the high register
• Sinker redwood top with chamfered edges, black/maple/rosewood purfling, abalone rosette, and bound soundhole; gloss finish
• Revolutionary V-Class bracing for optimized volume, sustain, and intonation
• Ergonomically radiused armrest, Indian rosewood sides and back; gloss finish
• Neo-tropical mahogany neck, standard carve, satin finish
• Bound Crelicam West African ebony fingerboard with 15-inch radius, 20 frets, and shell/gold mother-of-pearl Element inlays
• Headstock: Crelicam ebony overlay, shell/gold mother-of-pearl Element inlay
• TUSQ nut, 1.75-inch
• Crelicam ebony bridge and pins; Micarta saddle
• Gotoh 510 antique gold tuning machines
• Taylor ES2 electronics
• Hardshell case included