Anyone try Taylor's V-class acoustics? Too bright!

[GuitarStv]

I've been looking for a new acoustic guitar and tried out a bunch of Taylors with their new V-class bracing. Did some comparisons with older model X-braced Taylors. The v-bracing sounds decent on their big jumbo 'Grand Orchestra' bodies and on their slope shoulder 'Grand Pacific' dreadnoughts. Those designs both pump out enough bass to balance the highs. But the v-bracing seems to add a little brightness that their other guitar body shapes didn't really need though and there isn't enough bass to balance them out. Some of them are downright shrill for strumming although OK for fingerstyle stuff. Am I crazy on this, or is that what everyone else hears too?

 

[NegativeEase]

Havent tried the V Brace yet, but my old X brace Grand Auditorium is the the best style Taylor I know for balanced sound, recording, and fingerstyles/flatpickin'

 

[Chris Pile]

There is a Taylor dealer in town, and they talked to me about V-Class bracing a lot. I finally told them I wasn't impressed... If I wanted a Taylor, I'd have one. And I DON'T have one. Most of them sound..... not quite right to me. Once in awhile one sounds incredible. I look at them like Ovations. They sound okay plugged in, but unplugged? Ordinary as hell.

 

[treyhaislip]

My Taylor 714CE V-Class with Cedar (Grand Auditorium) is a definite enhancement to the older 714CEs to my ears–noticeable increase in sustain. The bass notes really sing on mine, the guitar sounds very full and balanced with fingerpicking and light to medium strumming. The Cedar top is probably what makes it not as good for heavy strumming though.

I do tend to think of Taylors as being overly bright–the old 714s w/Cedar were really the only Taylors I thought sounded well balanced (hence I ordered a new one with the Cedar top when I started playing more fingerstyle.) If majority of my playing was strumming, I would stick to Martin and Gibson.

 

[GuitarStv]

There is a Taylor dealer in town, and they talked to me about V-Class bracing a lot. I finally told them I wasn't impressed... If I wanted a Taylor, I'd have one. And I DON'T have one. Most of them sound..... not quite right to me. Once in awhile one sounds incredible. I look at them like Ovations. They sound okay plugged in, but unplugged? Ordinary as hell.

There's definitely a different sound. Taylors tend to be less bassy in all their designs than anything that I've played from Gibson or Martin. On good ones there's a clarity with them that I really like though, especially when capoing higher up the neck. The neck also feels great to my hands. And I like that having to do a neck reset is a 30$ rather than 300$ job. I think the older X-bracing that was being used sounds better though than the v-bracing.

Did you try out their new slope shouldered dreads? Those sound much more like Gibson/Martins than any of the other taylor models I've tried.

My Taylor 714CE V-Class with Cedar (Grand Auditorium) is a definite enhancement to the older 714CEs to my ears–noticeable increase in sustain. The bass notes really sing on mine, the guitar sounds very full and balanced with fingerpicking and light to medium strumming. The Cedar top is probably what makes it not as good for heavy strumming though.

I do tend to think of Taylors as being overly bright–the old 714s w/Cedar were really the only Taylors I thought sounded well balanced (hence I ordered a new one with the Cedar top when I started playing more fingerstyle.) If majority of my playing was strumming, I would stick to Martin and Gibson.

Yeah, with the different woods it seems less of an issue - it's mostly on the spruce topped ones that I was hearing too much zing. I haven't played any cedar topped Taylors, but tried a couple mahogany topped offerings. The mahogany topped GA and GS were both OK with the V-bracing - I think that the mahogany must eat up the offending high frequencies. But both were a lot quieter than I'd want an acoustic to be unplugged (not sure if this is an attribute of mahogany. On all the spruce topped guitars, the V-bracing seemed to add a little sustain . . . but at the cost of brightening up an already bright design.