Taylor pairs that extra body volume with a Sitka spruce top over Neo-tropical mahogany back and sides, a combination that delivers a dry, focused midrange rather than a wash of overtones. Mahogany's tight cell structure keeps the fundamental note forward and the decay quick, so chord work stays defined instead of blurring together under a capo or a heavy strum. Where a rosewood back and sides would add shimmer and harmonic complexity to the tail of each note, the mahogany here keeps the attack up front and the response quick. The spruce top adds the headroom to drive that midrange harder without the top folding under a heavy right hand.
Taylor's Fanned V-Class bracing with Tonal Rout is what lets that top move as freely as it does. The V-shaped brace pattern trades stiffness for volume and sustain without sacrificing intonation up the neck, and the Tonal Rout frees the top's edges to vibrate with less restriction. The result is a Super Auditorium that resonates like a bigger guitar than its footprint suggests, with sustain that holds and pitch that stays true even fretting hard up around the twelfth fret. The 1-3/4-inch nut and 25-1/2-inch scale keep string tension familiar and even, and the Standard Carve neck profile splits the difference between a slim modern neck and a vintage-thick one.
Plugged in, an L.R. Baggs Element VTC pickup system carries that acoustic voice to the board, with onboard volume and tone controls and a built-in tuner for stage-ready flexibility without the quack or brittleness of a basic undersaddle pickup. Taylor finished this one in Sunburst with a cream pickguard, a look that leans classic without going vintage-fussy, and ships it in a British Cocoa Bronco Taylor Deluxe hardshell case built to protect it on the road for the long haul. Every 514e that comes through our doors qualifies for the Dread-Not Guarantee — a 30-day in-home trial and a full year to trade it in for 90% credit toward anything else in the store — and every unit goes through our 23-Point Professional Inspection plus a free humidity monitoring kit before it ever leaves the building.
The 514e sits inside Taylor's Gold Label series, where Taylor pairs Fanned V-Class bracing with more traditionally voiced tonewood combinations across a range of body shapes, and it's part of the full Taylor lineup we carry. This page is the permanent home for the model — every serialized 514e we sell redirects back here once it's gone, so check back if this run is out of stock.
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.
