A mid-sized nylon-string guitar made of tropical mahogany and Western Red cedar with Taylor ES-N electronics.
Singer-songwriters are often drawn to the 500 Series because mahogany yields its inspiring tone easily, with a breathy midrange and a wonderful balance of warmth, clarity and complexity. The Taylor 2012 514ce-N-L Mahogany/Cedar Nylon String Grand Auditorium Left-Handed Acoustic-Electric Guitar model sports a beautiful cedar top. The refined appointment package features a laser-engraved Deco Diamond inlay scheme, faux tortoise shell binding, and a dark body stain that honors mahogany’s enduring heritage.
Grand Auditorium (GA)
Body Width: 16" / Body Depth: 4-5/8" / Body Length: 20"
Taylor’s signature shape embodies the ultimate all purpose acoustic.
Taylor's most popular and versatile body shape, the mid-size Grand Auditorium arrived in 1994 bearing refined proportions that fell between a Dreadnought and Grand Concert. While the bigger Dreadnought was traditionally considered a flatpicker’s guitar and the smaller Grand Concert catered to fingerstylists, the GA was designed to deliver on both fronts. The shape produced an original acoustic voice that was big enough to handle medium-strength picking and strumming, yet with impressive balance across the tonal spectrum, especially in the midrange, producing clear, well-defined notes that suited both strumming and fingerstyle playing. The GA’s overall presence tracks well with other instruments both in a studio mix and on stage, and singer-songwriters have embraced its utility both for composing and traveling with one guitar. Many people want a single guitar that can cover a variety of styles, which is why the GA continues to be a bestselling shape. If you want a great all-purpose guitar, the multi-dimensional GA won’t let you down.
Tropical Mahogany
Origin: Central and South America
Mahogany is a good wood to anchor a discussion of tones, as a lot of other wood tones can be described in relation to it. Its essential sonic profile is well represented in the midrange frequencies. Acoustic guitars in general tend to live in the midrange portion of the sound spectrum, but mahogany in particular displays a lot of midrange character. That thick, present midrange sound is sometimes described in guitar circles as meaty, organic or even “chewy” — wherever a player digs in on the fretboard, they’re tapping into the core of the harmonic content of what a guitar produces. Those great midrange frequencies produce overtones that stack up and produce bloom, giving the sound extra girth. When one hears the resulting harmonics, the “chewy” tone serves up a big mouthful of midrange. As a popular tonewood for many decades, mahogany has been used on scads of old school acoustic recordings, and that sonic heritage carries across various strains of roots music, from blues to folk to slack key.
Goes well with: A broad range of players and musical styles; people who like a well-balanced tone, nice dynamic range and a healthy serving of overtones. Blues and other rootsy players tend to respond well to mahogany’s midrange character. A smaller body mahogany guitar (GC or GA) might appeal to fingerstyle players, whereas more aggressive flatpickers might opt for a mahogany Dreadnought or GS. For versatility, a mahogany GA is a good bet. Because of mahogany’s midrange, a player with “dark hands” will tend to sound darker on a mahogany guitar. A bright player will sound slightly less bright.
ES-N®
Like the the ES-T, The ES-N is a single-source, under-saddle transducer, but the preamp design and tone controls were customized to complement the nylon-string voice. Taylor standard ES control knobs enable plenty of tone-shaping and preserve the natural design aesthetic. Installed on nylon-string models.
