The latest model to join Taylor’s ultra-premium Builder’s Edition collection, the Grand Auditorium Builder’s Edition 914ce is stunning in every way. It starts with back and sides of gorgeous Honduran rosewood (featuring an elegant four-piece Simons wedge configuration for the back), matched with a top of striped sinker redwood — two tonewoods normally reserved for our top-of-the-line Presentation Series.
Honduran rosewood is denser than its Indian rosewood counterpart, producing beautifully complex harmonic textures across the frequency spectrum, with warm lows, piano-like trebles and a highly refined response. Our sinker redwood is sourced from old-growth logs formerly submerged in Northern California riverbeds (which accounts for the rich striping effect in the wood grain). Sonically, it yields the pleasing warmth and touch-sensitivity of cedar, but with bolder projection and enhanced dynamic range. Voiced with our V-Class bracing, the overall result is a wonderfully high-fidelity tone profile with lush overtones, a high volume ceiling, and pitch precision that makes it a joy to listen to chords ringing out.
Among the comfort-enhancing design touches are a beautifully sculpted beveled armrest and cutaway, chamfered body edges, and a contoured Curve Wing bridge. Refined aesthetic details include Hawaiian koa purfling with paua edge trim for the top and back; koa fretboard and peghead purfling; a single-ring paua rosette with ebony/koa/black purfling and an ebony-bound soundhole; an ebony backstrap; Gotoh 510 tuning machines in antique gold; ebony bridge pins with green abalone dots; and Belle Fleur fretboard and peghead inlays in paua and mother-of-pearl. Color/finish details include an artfully hand-sprayed Kona edgeburst on the back and sides, plus a heel burst, with a gloss-finish body and satin-finish neck.
Specifications
Back/Side Wood: Honduran Rosewood
Top Wood: Striped Sinker Redwood
Neck: Neo-Tropical Mahogany
Fretboard: West African Crelicam Ebony
Nut Width: 1-3/4”
Scale Length: 25-1/2”
Bracing: V-Class
Electronics: ES2
Guitar Protection: Deluxe Hardshell Case, Brown
Strings: D’Addario XS Coated Phosphor Bronze Light