Taylor Gold Label 814e review – “if you’ve been left cold by Taylor guitars in the past, this might make you take another look”
$4,499 / £4,799, taylor.com
Maybe it’s a privilege of reaching a distinguished age, but Taylor has been confounding expectations quite a lot recently. At the tail end of last year the brand capped off its 50th anniversary by doing something totally out of the ordinary by releasing some honest to goodness reissues (sort of), and now here we are welcoming in 2025 with something very different but feels like perhaps even more of a departure.
READ MORE: Taylor Legacy 810e review – a fascinating reimagining of Taylor’s first-ever guitar
Because the Gold Label collection – of which this 814e is the first model – is a very different kind of Taylor acoustic guitar, one squarely aimed not at the brand’s usual audience but at those who have bounced off the pristine, clean sonic characteristics that have made the brand so popular.
Taylor Gold Label 814e – what is it?
In essence, the Gold Label is an attempt by CEO, President and Master Guitar Designer Andy Powers to convert the unbelievers to the righteousness of the Taylor cause – but he’s doing this by telling all those people who have spent the last 50 years complaining about Taylor sound that, in effect, they’re not wrong.
“I don’t think that they’re wrong,” Powers told Guitar.com of those people who are left cold by the high-fidelity character that has been a Taylor hallmark. “I think they’re hearing what they’re hearing and they get to choose whether they like it or not.”
But given his background as a one-off custom instrument maker, it’s understandable that Powers isn’t content with that situation, and so enters the Gold Label collection – a range that has been designed to be quite unlike any other Taylor guitar. One that promises a sound that fans of vintage guitars from the 1930s and 40s will enjoy, but melded with the playability and usability of a modern instrument.
Image: Adam Gasson
How is the Gold Label different from other Taylors?
The 814 is an amalgam of several of Taylor’s more recent explorations, with some new stuff in there too. The most noticeable thing is probably the new Super Auditorium body shape – the proportions of which are very similar to the Grand Auditorium shape, but with a more open waist and a few other tweaks to make the whole thing more classic and vintage looking. You may be noticing a theme here.
At its heart we have a 25.5” scale length, and 14-fret design powered by Andy Powers’ V-class bracing – in this case a tweaked version that borrows some elements from classical fan brace. I did say that this was quite unlike any other Taylor guitar. Coupled with aesthetic inspiration from vintage 1930s instruments, the results are the elegant preproduction prototype currently making itself at home in my studio.
At first glance this looks like the work of a talented sole luthier who had the misfortune of sharing a name with one of the world’s biggest guitar brands – a fact only enhanced by a different headstock logo. From the other side of the room this could easily be mistaken for a Kim Walker Small Jumbo with something like Wayne Henderson’s headstock. This does not look mass produced.
Image: Adam Gasson
This guitar is perhaps the most balanced meeting of modern and traditional acoustic luthiery we have seen since Taylor introduced the Grand Pacific model. Eschewing recent dalliances with woods such as Urban Ash – Taylor has opted for a choice of either Hawaiian Koa or Honduran rosewood for the backs and sides coupled with a spruce top.
The model is the rosewood option – readily identifiable by the terracotta tinge to the straight grain dalbergia back and sides. It’s a very attractive look – complemented by a gentle amber burst gloss finish on the torrified sitka spruce soundboard. We also have hot hide glue inside – it may not be vegan friendly but its use in instrument making goes back centuries and it’s another example of Powers’ desire to meld the new and old here.
Aesthetically this guitar is perhaps the least Taylor-flavoured of any Taylor we have seen so far. Every aspect of the brand’s designs of the past screams efficiency and consistency – this guitar however, gives us little touches of whimsy such as the freehand Taylor logo, and the ‘Continental’ inlay motif which extends down the fretboard as far as the scratchplate.
The West African Crelicam ebony fingerboard and curve wing bridge in Honduran rosewood, though, are classic Taylor touches. It’s a much more vintage look – with visual touchstones that remind me of Recording King, Bacon and Day and other dusty brands of yore.
Image: Adam Gasson
Taylor Gold Label 814e – what is the Long Tenon neck?
Perhaps the most significant (yet under the radar) feature of the Gold Label 814e is the new Long Tenon neck. For the best part of 25 years Taylor’s NT Neck has made the brand’s guitars a doddle to maintain – it’s been hugely successful and well-regarded in that time, so this is quite a moment.
The Long Tenon neck is an adjustable, glue-free design that has been in the works for over half a decade by Powers and the Taylor team – it’s a more complicated design than its predecessor, but it offers some tonal and maintenance advantages, as Powers reveals:
“The NT Neck works really well,” he explains. “But in looking farther forward, I want the guitars to serve the musicians even better than that. Can we do better? I think we can. And so for a number of years, I’ve been working on this design that’s now being introduced here. It’s actually a long-tenon neck. And so it behaves a little differently than our classic Taylor neck, in that it somewhat reflects a more traditional neck joint – a long tenon or a dovetail or something like that – it allows you to build some of that sound in.
“What is different, though, is this one is more adjustable than what we’ve done in the past even,” adds Powers. “With this one, the actual neck angle or string height can be adjusted with just a wrench. So if you’re going to do a neck reset, you don’t take the guitar apart. You don’t even detune the strings – you just simply adjust it. So for the life of the instrument, the setup is going to be; adjust the truss rod and then adjust the string height, and you’re set to go.”
Given that this guitar came straight from Powers’ own workshop to my studio (via a brief detour to have its picture taken) I can’t speak to this as it’s all in as fine fettle as you’d expect, but we’ll see how the tonal impact bares out…
Taylor Gold Label 814e – sounds
With the expressed intent behind this guitar being a meeting of the classic Taylor sound and playability with the voice of a 1930s instrument, it is not immediately obvious what I should expect. Is this a Taylor for people who don’t like Taylors, or a different flavour for people who do? There’s only one way to find out…
The opening chords on this instrument reveal a voice that sits readily between the uber woody tones of Gibson’s Murphy Lab and the crisper end of the Martin Custom Shop. That Taylor shimmer is present across the trebles as expected, but there is more going on here than I’d have predicted from a standard Grand Auditorium.
This is a very young guitar of course but the bass end is surprisingly warm – something attributable as much to the slightly more open waist of the guitar as the long tenon neck construction.
Given the warmth elsewhere, the mids and trebles are as detailed and articulate as any other V-class guitar I have played. As a bracing system, it certainly has a place within the context of a Taylor instrument, but there is still a school of players that remain unconvinced by some of the bolder claims about improvements to the guitar’s intonation – it’s certainly a very in-tune guitar.
Either way, dropping the guitar into DADGAD takes us into some really beautiful territory. This is a strong rosewood/spruce voice with enough power to excel across a range of styles from Latin to Celtic. The interplay between fretted and open strings is smooth and musical, with extended chord voices coming out full-bodied and detailed up the whole of the fingerboard.
Image: Adam Gasson
Plugging in, another decidedly non-Taylor touch is the presence of an LR Baggs Element VTC pickup system rather than the ubiquitous ES-2 system. Powers says that it was mainly an aesthetic choice to skip the trademark three rubber knobs on the top bout, but it’s worth noting that another landmark Taylor guitar we saw recently – the 814 Legacy Collection dreadnought – was also similarly kitted out. Could this mean a general move toward Baggs in the future, or a redesign of Taylor’s in-house system to be less overt? Time will tell.
Such is the contrast to the rest of the Taylor line, the very existence of this guitar leads me to wonder what other aspects of it will filter through to the Taylor range on the whole.
The advantages of a neck you can adjust without even needing to take the strings off, are obvious, and I’d be surprised if – like V-Class – the long-tenon neck doesn’t trickle down to the wider range in time.
It would also be no surprise at all to see this body shape taking over from the Grand Auditorium – we could even see large-scale adoption of this headstock shape and logo, though that seems a stretch.
Ultimately, this is conjecture, and Powers insists that this isn’t so much about changing the Taylor recipe after 50 years of roaring success – but expanding it so that it can appeal to an even wider range of players.
And with that in mind, this is a fine and capable instrument – regardless of the name on the headstock – could also prove to be another important milestone in the evolution of the Taylor Guitars brand.
Image: Adam Gasson
Taylor Gold Label 814e – alternatives
At this super-premium price point, there’s a positively droolsome array of wonderful acoustic guitars you can look into as alternatives. For some authentic 1940s acoustic vibes, the new Gibson 1942 Banner J-45 ($4,999) is a stunning example of a classic guitar, while the other side of the classic acoustic recipe would be the Martin 000-28E Modern Deluxe ($4,999). If you’re after an alternative Taylor with vintage vibes but less overtly vintage-inspired tones, the Builder’s Edition 717e ($3,499) is a slope-shouldered, non-cutaway beauty.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
