Taylor Guitars Builder’s Edition K14ce

Pure Luxury

The new Builder's Edition K14ce may very well provide the most luxurious playing experience of any acoustic guitar in our shop! Andy Powers designed the Builder's Edition guitars to be as comfortable as humanly possible, and they have rolled out the six-string equivalent of a red carpet for players who demand exceptional ergonomics as well as spectacular sound. Like any Taylor, it has exceptional handfeel and it plays easy like Sunday morning--especially on the high frets, where a reshaped cutaway with a finger bevel allows for unprecedented upper-fret access.

Speaking of bevels, the wizards at Taylor have taken their beveled armrest concept and expanded on it, and the results are extraordinary! We Wildwoodians have loved Taylor's armrests for years, because they allow for maximum comfort AND they allow the top to resonate more freely because your arm doesn't rest directly on the soundboard. On the Builder's Edition K14ce, Taylor has beveled the edge of the ENTIRE guitar. When you combine this smooth feel with Taylor's "silent satin" finish--a thin finish meant to cut down on incidental noise--you get a guitar that provides world-beating comfort. Basically, when you pick up a K14ce, it feels so welcoming and inviting that it's almost like you're playing a wooden pillow!

Not that you'll be able to sleep, because they sound so good that you'll want to stay up all night playing them! The torrefied spruce top and the koa back and sides conspire together to bring you warm, deep, clear lows to go with woody, detailed midrange and classic Taylor sparkle and shimmer in the highs. This sort of tonewood pairing would ordinarily result in an addictive sonic cocktail, but Taylor pushed these guitars over the top by incorporating their revolutionary V-Class bracing!

A V-Classic

We can't talk about how sweet these guitars sound without talking about Taylor's new V-Class bracing. It's an elegant solution to a problem that has plagued luthiers for decades. For years, acoustic guitar builders had to compromise between volume and sustain. Flexibility equals volume, and stiffness equals sustain. Obviously, a piece of wood cannot be rigid and flexible at the same time, so builders had to go for one or the other.

Andy Powers wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. After much tinkering, V-Class bracing was his elegant solution to the problem that has plagued luthiers for centuries. As the name implies, V-Class bracing features two long pieces of wood that make a "V" shape together. The bracing is quite thin and flexible near the rear bout, but it becomes thicker as you get closer to the soundhole.

So, you get volume from the flexible parts of the bracing, and sustain from the rigid parts! Many areas of the guitar neck that typically sound weak (ninth fret on the G string, for instance) have just as much presence, resonance, and sustain as the low E. As a result, the Builder’s Edition K14ce sounds supremely balanced and sculpted. When you hear one played live in the room, you'd swear a mix engineer had already done a bunch of post-production work on it. And, it gives the guitar piano-like note separation and crystalline clarity even when you play fancy jazz chords!

Intonation Station

V-Class bracing also does wonders for the guitar's intonation. Are you ready to have your mind blown? When I visited the Taylor headquarters El Cajon, Andy Powers explained that an acoustic guitar's intonation is not necessarily just the sum of the typical adjustments like saddle height, nut slots, and neck angle (though they do play a part). The way that the actual guitar itself vibrates also has a lot to do with how in-tune it sounds.

Andy told me to picture it like this: when you take close-up slow-motion footage of a guitar's top with a high-speed camera as someone plays it, you can see the top move vividly. On a traditional X-braced guitar, the top vibrates in a disorderly, disjointed manner. This can cause a guitar with the perfect saddle height and neck angle to sound out of tune when you play a big open chord.

By contrast, guitars with V-Class bracing vibrate in a much more orderly manner. The graduated braces compel the energy from the player's attack to move from the thin outer part of the bracing to the thicker inner part in an efficient manner. If you were to take a high-speed shot of a V-Class top, you would see it rock back and forth evenly in a pleasing pattern. Because of that V-Class magic, the Builder’s Edition K14ce sounds so in-tune that it's scary.

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