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Taylor Gold Label 815E Acoustic Guitar

Hot on the heels of Taylor Guitars’ 50th anniversary that was celebrated in 2024 with an array of commemorative limited edition acoustic guitars, Taylor unveils a completely new line rolling into their year 51. The Gold Label Collection brings new features and refinements while still retaining all the qualities that have made Taylor musicians’ favorite for decades. 

Well-known and internationally respected for great playability, pure tone, and accurate intonation, the new Gold Label Collection does not disappoint. The Gold Label Collection has three innovations: new body designs, internal bracing, and neck joints. Two new body styles, the deeper-bodied Grand Pacific and the new larger Super Auditorium feature new “Fanned V-Class bracing,” promising enhanced warmth. A newly designed patented “Action Control Neck” features a long-tenon design for improved resonance and allows you to fine-tune your string height. The Gold Label 814e has a slim neck, is easy to play and has a sweet warm treble that is not brittle, and a low end that is focused and not boomy. The string action is perfect with no need for adjustment.

Adapted from Taylor’s Grand Auditorium body size, the Super Auditorium features slightly longer and wider proportions, channeling extra low-end power and an open response. Body woods can be either Honduran rosewood or figured Hawaiian koa back and sides, each paired with torrefied spruce tops offered in natural or sunburst. These are premium guitars, and the woods are gorgeous. As aged tonewoods become rarer and harder to source, torrefaction is a process in which younger spruce tops are roasted. Torrefied spruce tops sound warm, giving them a quality you would expect from older wood. 

Cosmetically the Gold Label 814e features fresh visual appointments with a new Continental inlay suite, a new pickguard design, grained ivoroid trim, bone bridge pins, a gloss-finished body and antique chrome Gotoh 510 tuners with ebony buttons. The tuners have a feel that is among the best I’ve experienced. 

Loaded with an LR Baggs Element VTC bridge pickup, it’s discrete Class A preamp has a proprietary analog compressor that operates below 400Hz to attenuate the thump and boom that can foil a great live acoustic guitar sound. Soundhole mounted volume and treble tone controls enhance operation. A great looking deluxe hardshell case with a British Cocoa exterior rounds out the package.

One thing that is remarkable about Taylor Guitars is that they never are content to rest on their laurels. Always innovating under Andy Powers’ inspiration, the Gold Label Series is guaranteed to be a hit for Taylor Guitars fans. $4,499

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