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).
