Combining tasteful aesthetics with tone-enhancing details, the 400 Series is Taylor’s popular class of workhorse rosewood guitars. The 414ce-R acoustic-electric Grand Auditorium features revolutionary V-Class bracing, which boosts volume evenly across the tonal spectrum, increases sustain, and improves the natural intonation of the instrument by creating a more synergistic response from the soundboard. This fosters a more harmonious relationship between the notes you play, helping chords to ring out in cohesive splendor. If you’re a guitarist who appreciates the robust lows and crisp highs of rosewood, you’ll relish how well-mannered the overtones are as your notes bloom. While your ears delight in its beautiful tone, your eyes will savor the 414ce-R’s refined appointments.

V-Class bracing: a sonic revelation

Bracing is the internal framework of an acoustic guitar that helps shape its sound. Although X-bracing has been standard in acoustic guitars for over a century, it creates an innate conflict between two key elements of a guitar’s sound: volume and sustain. The guitar’s top (its soundboard) contributes to both. The flexibility of the top generates volume (projection), while its stiffness generates sustain. And with X-braced guitar tops, here’s where the trade-off comes in: when something is made stiffer, its flexibility is reduced (and vice versa). V-Class bracing changes all that. With Taylor’s V-Class bracing, an acoustic guitar top can be both stiff and flexible — for more volume and sustain. V-Class bracing provides stiffness parallel to the strings for more rigidity and hence sustain. Flexibility on either side generates the air movement necessary for robust projection. It’s the best of both worlds. This groundbreaking innovation also improves intonation — not only producing notes that are louder and have longer sustain, but are also more in tune with each other. Guitarists at Music Experience are gobsmacked. But don’t take our word for it — pick up the superb Taylor 414ce-R and experience it for yourself!

Grand Auditorium body style delivers exceptional presence

Taylor’s beloved Grand Auditorium body style, featured on the 414ce-R, employs the width and depth of a dreadnought. But its waist is narrower, which gives Grand Auditorium–bodied acoustic guitars a sleeker look with more treble zing. The Grand Auditorium body style also helps to sharpen the definition of each note — a quality desirable in any musical style. You’ll also find your Grand Auditorium guitar to be incredibly comfortable, whether you’re playing seated or standing.

A classic tonewood combination

Nothing beats the sound of rosewood topped with spruce. As a top tonewood, Sitka spruce offers a combination of strength and elasticity that delivers a broad dynamic range with crisp articulation that’s ideal for a wide range of playing styles, from delicate fingerpicking to aggressive flatpicked strumming. Used for the back and sides of the 414ce-R, Indian rosewood’s extended frequency range and rich, musical tonality have elevated it to premium status among tonewoods. Its potent low end can serve up a throaty growl while sparkling treble notes ring out with bell-like clarity. Slightly scooped in the midrange (as compared with mahogany), rosewood acoustic guitars are perfect for solo performance, vocal accompaniment, and tracking in sparser arrangements.

Taylor Expression System 2 electronics

If you play plugged in, then you’re going to love the Taylor Expression System 2 (ES2) electronics built into your 414ce-R. The key to this fantastic system is the 3-section proprietary pickup located behind the saddle. Because of where it’s positioned and how it’s integrated into the 414ce-R’s saddle, the ES2 pickup provides you with remarkably clear and accurate sound. In addition to a master volume control, a pair of tone controls lets you tweak your highs and lows to get the sound you need, and a discrete phase switch offers vital onboard feedback suppression.