Taylor 117e

The Grand Pacific is a genuinely different body than the rest of Taylor's catalog, not just a dreadnought with a rounder shoulder for looks. Where a traditional dreadnought's square shoulders push energy straight down the top, the Grand Pacific's sloped shoulders let more of that energy spread across a wider area, producing a fuller low end and a rounder, more vintage-adjacent overtone stack than a standard dreadnought delivers from the same footprint. On the 117e, that shape is paired with a solid torrefied spruce top — roasted under controlled heat before it's ever braced, driving out excess moisture and cellulose sugars so the top starts out already partway toward the open, resonant voice untreated spruce normally only develops after years of playing — over layered sapele back and sides, which keeps the midrange punchy and direct rather than letting the Grand Pacific's extra low end wash out the guitar's overall clarity.

C-Class Bracing, Taylor's traditional bracing pattern used throughout the 100 and 200 Series, is the foundation underneath that pairing. It isn't the patented V-Class geometry Taylor reserves for the 300 Series and up, and the 117e isn't built to chase V-Class's specific sustain and up-the-neck intonation gains — what it delivers instead is a genuinely well-built, well-intonated Taylor voiced for volume and low-end weight at the most accessible price point the Grand Pacific body is available at anywhere in Taylor's catalog. The 117e also skips the Venetian cutaway its sibling carries, a deliberate trade rather than a cost-cutting omission: without a cutaway notched into the lower bout, more of the top's surface area stays intact and free to vibrate, reinforcing exactly the low-end push and projection the Grand Pacific shape is built to deliver.

The clearest comparison inside the 100 Series is the 117e set against its own sibling, the 114ce. Both share the identical torrefied spruce top, layered sapele back and sides, C-Class Bracing, and $799 price, so the entire difference between them comes down to body shape. The 117e's Grand Pacific pushes more low-end weight and volume under a full chord strum, at the cost of the upper-fret access a cutaway provides. The 114ce's Grand Auditorium trades some of that low-end push for balance and a Venetian cutaway that opens up the neck for solos and capoed work. Neither is a better guitar than the other; a strummer or rhythm player chasing more low-end presence under a full band mix is better served by the 117e, while a fingerstyle player or anyone soloing past the twelfth fret is better served by the 114ce.

Every Taylor that leaves The Acoustic Shoppe completes the same full 23-Point Professional Inspection our in-house techs run on every instrument we sell, regardless of price point or series tier — a genuine pre-sale quality check, not a routine setup. At $799, the 117e sits well under our $1,000 Dread-Not Guarantee threshold, so it doesn't carry the full guarantee package (the 30-day in-home trial, 1-year 90% trade-in credit, and free humidity monitoring kit reserved for instruments at $1,000 and up), but it still ships only after that complete inspection has cleared, and our team is glad to walk through what that inspection covers before you buy.

For the rest of the line, see our Taylor 100 Series collection, and for the complete range of Taylor models we carry, visit our Taylor Guitars collection.

The Acoustic Shoppe is an Authorized Taylor Premier Dealer and Gold Label Advantage Dealer. Every instrument ships after a full 23-point professional inspection by our in-house repair tech. As a nine-time consecutive NAMM Top 100 Dealer, we handle warranty concerns directly on your behalf.