Taylor 514ce Grand Auditorium ES2
This instrument is discontinued

Offering up warm, dark tones thanks to Tropical Mahogany back and sides, and clarity with a Solid Cedar top, the Taylor 514ce is well-established amongst the tonewood elite. Many consider these striking all glossy guitars the ultimate fingerpickers. Plugged in, all the nuances and subtleties will be faithfully recreated via the famous Expression System.

Full of character, the Taylor 514ce features a Western Red Cedar top which delivers extra warmth and responsiveness to the popular mahogany Grand Auditorium Cutaway body. The Expression System ES2 is Taylors new redesigned Piezo pickup that will ensure a terrific live or recorded sound.

The Taylor 514ce includes a deluxe hardshell case, a left handed variant no additional charge (call for details) and a 12 YEAR WARRANTY with Taylor!

Grand Auditorium Body Shape

In many respects the Grand Auditorium represents Taylor`s quintessential body style. It embodies Bob Taylor`s design sensibility in the purest sense and has come to define the sound of a modern acoustic guitar.

Bob first introduced the Grand Auditorium shape in 1994, a decade after the Grand Concert, in commemoration of the company`s 20th anniversary. The Grand Auditorium found the sweet spot between a Dreadnought - known for robust flatpicking and rhythmic strumming - and Grand Concert - designed with fingerstylists in mind - to give players the best of both worlds and then some. With a body size that was bigger than the Grand Concert, it produced a more powerful voice, particularly in the low-end, yet also had a bright, bell-like chime on the treble side and a well-defined midrange that helped maintain the balance and clarity.

The Grand Auditorium shape spoke to modern players because it gave them a level of versatility that many of them had long craved. Session players and recording engineers from Nashville`s country scene to the rock world discovered how well a Grand Auditorium fit into a mix without being too `boomy`. Many producers would (and still do) keep a Grand Auditorium in the studio as their go-to guitar because they knew how well it tracked, especially alongside a bass guitar and other instruments in the mix. It`s also been a reliable tool for performing sidemen over the years.

For those of us who play recreationally, the Grand Auditorium is a fantastic all-purpose guitar. It can yield a full voice for light strummers and give fingerpickers a little extra dynamic range. If you can only pick one guitar, the Grand Auditorium body shape will suit you well.