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I've been playing my son's Taylor 314ce recently (because the V-neck on my old Gibson is getting pretty painful on left hand & forearm), which has led me to the guitar store for a guitar to hold me over til I get one built. So of course I've played everything in town and am just puzzled by the Taylor sound - I don't want to get into a discussion about what's better or what's not, its all subjective. But it seems to me that Taylor has figured out a way to get a very high "sound quality to dollar" ratio on their instruments, and was wondering if there is anything specific that they do differently than other manufacturers? I searched and found the polyester finish, bolt on neck, etc., but that hardly seems significant. There are others that are good - I'll be getting a Yamaha FS830 which is honestly an amazing guitar for $300 - but Taylor seems to have found a formula that is compelling, at least to me. So was just curious if there's anything significantly different that they do in terms of design, construction, materials, etc.?

Thanks

I think some of it is because of the relief routing around the edge of the top.

Short answer: I think it all matters. Taylor goes to lengths we'll never know in order to mass-produce a family of guitars.

Last year I visited a luthier in the wilds of Wisconsin and our conversation revolved around his I've-heard-the-angels-singing guitar he showed me. Any one thing define the sound? Nope. Everything.

Diane mentions one invisible subtlety that for-sure helps Taylors sound, well, like Taylors (and I'm a high-order Taylor fan). I suspect there's a hundred more.

Ah - didn't know about the edge routing, that seems significant. The Kincaid book (I think - I've read it somewhere) mentions thinning the top at the joint, interesting!

with taylor it is all cnc so no hand involvement. A very uniform process.