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The acoustic guitar community tends to be fairly low-key, but the buzz surrounding Taylor’s recent innovations is deafening. It’s as if head designer Andy Powers whapped a wasp nest with one of his startling new “V-Class” guitars.
Mind you, this is super-premium stuff. Taylor’s four initial V-Class models range in price from $4,449 to $8,999. Our review model is the $4,999 Builder’s Edition K14ce, a Grand Auditorium-sized model with koa back and sides and a roasted Sitka spruce top. Like its siblings, it boasts a number of innovative features. Most notable is an unprecedented bracing design, so let’s start there.
The V-Class instruments eschew the X-style bracing that has long dominated acoustic guitar design. Instead, the top bracing includes two long braces configured in a V shape with its point at the endpin. According to Taylor, this makes the top more in tune with the vibrating strings—improving volume, sustain, and intonation. According to my ears and microphones, it performs as promised. And the differences aren’t subtle.
Yes, the sustain is phenomenal—and not just in terms of how long notes keep ringing after they’ve been played. You perceive the increased sustain within a second or so of striking a string. The decay curve is much shallower, and the initial peak volume diminishes much less quickly than we’re accustomed to. The back-end sustain is equally remarkable. It’s almost as if you were playing through a compressor set to a slow-ish attack—except there’s nothing compressed about the guitar’s dynamic range.
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