Taylor’s Flagship Grand Auditorium with Magnificent Tonewoods
The Taylor PS14ce is a member of that rarefied breed: Taylor’s Presentation Series. This guitar’s exceptional beauty and stunning sound begin with the choicest tonewoods. Taylor updated their flagship Presentation Series acoustic-electric guitar with back and sides of sumptuous Honduran rosewood. This opulent PS14ce Grand Auditorium pairs the rosewood with a gorgeously variegated sinker redwood top featuring revolutionary V-Class bracing that bolsters both volume and sustain. The bracing also improves intonation, giving each note more power, uniformity, and harmonic synergy with other notes. These enhancements deliver a more expressive, highly musical voice for you to explore. Sinker redwood combines the warm overtones of cedar with the punchy attack of spruce, and together with the rosewood, serves up a rich, dynamic sonic palette suitable for a broad range of styles. High-end appointments abound in the Taylor PS14ce, including an ergonomic beveled ebony armrest, Taylor’s exquisite California Vine inlay, elegant gold Gotoh 510 tuners, and state-of-the-art ES2 electronics.
Related Videos: PS14ce - Natural Honduran Rosewood
Premium Honduran rosewood back and sides
Handcrafted in California by Taylor’s world-class luthiers, the PS14ce’s thoroughbred pedigree is manifest the second you open the case and take in the harmonious symphony of ultra-premium tonewoods. Honduran rosewood, used for the back and sides, is a sinuously figured tonewood with a distinctive and coveted sound characterized by its low damping factor, which gives it a richly layered harmonic response with lush, resonant overtones. Boasting clear, bell-like trebles and robust bass-register weight, Honduran rosewood’s creamy, authoritative voice is an ideal match for the PS14ce’s sinker redwood top.
Sinker redwood top for brilliant, bold response
Sinker redwood’s tight grain structure and cross-grain stiffness deliver brilliant, bold response with warm overtones. Sliced from massive old-growth redwood logs reclaimed from the river beds of Northern California, the tops typically display rich variegation imparted by up to a century or more of submergence in the silt and mineral-rich water. The wood from trees of this size and age tend to exhibit tight grain with pronounced cross-grain stiffness, which generally translates to a bold, forward response with spruce-like brilliance that is nicely complemented by warm, cedar-like overtones. Sweetwater’s guitar gurus sometimes characterize sinker redwood’s sound as “turbocharged cedar.”
Taylor Master Luthier Andy PowersV-Class bracing: prodigious volume and sustain
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 trade-off comes in: when something is made stiffer, its flexibility is reduced (and vice versa).
V-Class bracing changes all that. 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. Guitarists at Sweetwater are blown away. But don’t take our word for it — pick up the superb Taylor K14ce and experience it for yourself!
Grand Auditorium: comfort, presence, and projection
Taylor’s beloved Grand Auditorium body style, featured on the PS14ce, employs the width and depth of the Dreadnought. However its waist is narrower, which gives Grand Auditorium-bodied acoustic guitars a sleeker look, with more treble zing. The PS14ce’s Grand Auditorium body shape sharpens the definition of each note, balancing out nicely with the excellent projection afforded by its V-Class top bracing. Complementing the playing comfort of the instrument’s narrow waist is its ergonomically beveled armrest, bound in the same West African Crelicam ebony used for the instrument’s smooth-as-glass fingerboard.
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 PS14ce. 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 PS14ce Presentation Series Acoustic-electric Guitar Features:
- Grand Auditorium body style for comfort, presence, and projection
- Honduran rosewood back and sides for a distinctive look and glassy sustain
- Sinker redwood top combines the warm overtones of cedar with the punchy attack of spruce
- V-Class top bracing with relief rout for enhanced volume, sustain, and intonation
- Shell and mother-of-pearl California Vine inlays adorn fretboard, bridge, pickguard, and peghead
- Graceful Venetian cutaway gives you access all the way up the fingerboard
- Beveled West African Crelicam ebony armrest for optimized playing comfort
- Rosewood pickguard; bound soundhole with paua/shell rosette
- Tropical mahogany neck, Taylor Standard profile; 25.5-inch scale length
- West African Crelicam ebony fingerboard and binding
- Indian rosewood headstock overlay; West African Crelicam ebony binding and truss rod cover; paua purfling
- Dual-action truss rod, headstock access
- Onboard Taylor Expression System 2 electronics for natural amplified sound
- TUSQ nut, Micarta saddle
- West African ebony bridge with ebony pins and green abalone dots
- Gotoh 510 tuners, gold-plated
- Gloss body finish; satin neck finish
- Handcrafted by Taylor’s world-class luthiers in California
- Hardshell case included
