Taylor Guitars Wildwood-Exclusive K24ce DLX – Hand-Selected Woods

A Koa Glow-Up

Wildwoodians, we are proud to introduce the newest addition to Taylor's Koa series: the K24ce DLX. The K24ce DLX takes all of the jaw-dropping cosmetic appointments of the already-legendary K24ce and adds in one of our favorite luxuries: a beveled armrest. Of course, having an armrest makes for a supremely comfortable playing experience, but it also helps the K24ce DLX sing loud and proud. Because your arm sits on the armrest and not the top, the gorgeous koa top can vibrate more freely and project better. With its other high-end appointments like maple binding, a wooden spring vine inlay, and shaded edgeburst finish, the K24ce cuts a stunning figure. It looks elegant and refined, yet it maintains a tasteful, earthy aesthetic.

And the K24ce DLX sounds wonderful, too! Koa is a spectacular tonewood that produces sweet, singing highs, focused midrange, and tight, well-defined bass. As a result, the all-koa K24ce DLX has a clear, woody voice with that inimitable Taylor sparkle in the high end. Though it certainly sounds spectacular now, the cool thing about koa is that it sounds better and better the more you play it. The midrange broadens and becomes richer and more harmonically resonant, and the highs become lusher as you put in more play hours. So, the K24ce is a guitar that will grow with you and sound better and better as you practice and grow as a player!

I've Got to Admit it's Getting Better

And that really is the heart of the K24ce's appeal. It's a beautiful guitar of heirloom quality, it's ridiculously comfortable to play, and when you pass it down to your children or grandchildren it will sound even better than it did the day it came out of the box. We're proud to showcase such a spectacular instrument for our exceptional customers, and we know the K24ce DLX will inspire you endlessly.

A V-Classic

I would be remiss if I did not mention how the K24ce DLX utilizes 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 K24ce DLX 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 in 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 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 K24ce DLX sounds so in tune that it's scary.