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Taylor K14-CE Reviews  3 / 5 based on 2 reviewsThis is Taylor's all Koa six string cut-away. It is a beautiful guitar with a soft ventetion style cut-away. I am a predominately acoustic musician and have owned several acoustic instruments.
I borrowed this instrument from a friend for a while to see if I liked it enough to purchase. I played it for about a month. My friend payed somewhere around $3000 for the instrument.
To start, the guitar is absolutely beautiful. Hawaiian Koa is a type of Mahogany that only grows in Hawaii. The neck has a smooth feel to it and his played very well. Unfortunately, this is all I can say for the Pros.
Where to begin, this guitar was doomed from the start. An all Koa guitar is only nice to look at. Koa is a hard wood. Using Koa as a top is like using Rosewood as a top. The guitar has a very dark tone and lacks sound throughout the range of lows, mids, and highs. It is not responsive to touch as a guitar of this price range should be. I tried a number of different strings to try to awaken this guitar to no avail. Now that being said, all Taylor needs to do to make this a premier guitar is to put a spruce top, (preferably engleman spruce)instead of the Koa. I have played Koa and Spruce combinations and they sound light years better. Spruce is less-dense and allows the sound to come through. Koa tops work great for Ukulele's becuase they need to be tamed down, but just NOT for a guitar.
I am also very unimpressed with the version of the expression system that this guitar had. I found that the sensors were stuck to the top with double stick tape. One fell off and was rattling around in the guitar.
Other than the electronics the quality of the guitar is strong. It has fit and finish and was carefully assembled.
I saw a picture of this guitar and thought that I had to have it. At the price point I figured it would be the best thing I had ever laid hands on. All I can say is MAKE SURE YOU PLAY IT! I also tried the twelve string version of this guitar and found similar results. It is simply a bad combination of woods. Do not spend $3000 dollars on this guitar unless you are John Denver or Taylor Swift and all you need is something that looks good on stage. You are much better off with one of the 7,8, or 9 series Taylors. MattG rated this unit on 2010-01-11. I bought this guitar at guitar center for 3000.00
The new expression system has a wide, glassy sound, and the 3-piece back gives the guitar a touch more bass. It has standard-setting playability. I love this intrument. Not cheap, but worth every penny
About 2 weeks after I bought it, the expression system failed, so it had to be sent to the factory. My guy Alan at GC in Fountain Valley, CA sent it in for me and handled everything, and ewven gave me another K14CE to play, though I did not like it as well, he would have swapped them out. I have since bought a big baby and intend to get another Taylor from him; probably a 914CE
The quality of this instrument is without equal in its price class. I am a Taylor fan and do not believe that you can get a better sounding instrument short of a Ryan or an Olson, which are orders of magnitude more expensive.
Buy one if you are a serious musician. You will not regret it. This model is an excellent finger-style instrument that sounds very bright with the std elixir nanos. I think that Dean Markley Gold-phos are the best strings for this instrument, as they mellow the brightness and exemplify the nice mid-character. Van rated this unit on 2003-05-03.
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