Warmth, clarity, personality and ready for the stage.
A solid Western red cedar top on the Taylor 2012 GS5e Mahogany/Cedar Grand Symphony Acoustic-Electric Guitar produces a uniquely warm and complete tone that's perfect for fingerstyle and vocal accompaniment. The tropical American mahogany back and sides add projection without brittleness while ivoroid body and fretboard binding provide visual pizzazz. Abalone on the rosette and fretboard microdots is truly sublime. Ebony bridge and rosewood headcap.
Bob Taylor personally designed the Grand Symphony guitar body style for a unique sound. A higher, wider waist and a rounder lower bout result in distinctive tone with deep piano-like bass, rich mids, and clear, balanced highs--all with plenty of volume. This acoustic-electric model is also great for the stage with the Taylor Expression System.
Grand Symphony (GS)
Body Length: 20" / Body Width: 16 1/4" / Body Depth: 4 5/8"
The ultimate Taylor strummer.
The Grand Symphony shape joined the line in 2006 and delivers Taylor’s boldest, richest acoustic voice. Think of it as a Grand Auditorium with a turbo boost, thanks to expanded physical dimensions, including a slightly wider waist and a bigger lower bout. Strummers and pickers with a driving attack will love the fullness, volume and sustain. Yet for such a robust voice, the GS is also clear and responsive to fast picking runs or a light fingerstyle touch, so if you’re a dynamic player, this shape is a true contender. And the big voice doesn’t come at the expense of balance. The piano-like bass, meaty midrange, and thick, shimmering highs blend seamlessly. These traits also make the GS a great vehicle for 12-Strings. If you like a lush, potent guitar tone that has the horsepower to compete with other acoustic cannons out there, the GS shape is a worthy choice.
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.
The Expression System
A high-performance preamp incorporates discrete circuitry and is voiced to shape tone without adding noise. Three tone knobs make it easy to control the volume, bass and treble, while a switch on the preamp circuit board turns off the body sensor, allowing for voicing flexibility. Proprietary magnetic body and neck sensors work like a microphone to produce a clean, clear signal without feedback.
