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Five reasons why the Gold Label 814e is unlike any Taylor guitar in history

March 27, 2025

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Ever since Taylor Guitars appointed boutique luthier Andy Powers as the brand’s Master Guitar Designer back in 2011, the easygoing Californian has been the driving force behind the world’s most innovative guitar brand.
For 2025, however, Powers and Taylor revealed perhaps the boldest and most different Taylor guitar ever – one that incorporates much of the innovation and wisdom the brand has developed over the last 50 years, alloyed to some radical new inventions.
The Gold Label Collection – which at launch comprises a pair of 814e models – is a dramatic departure from pretty much every Taylor guitar that has come before it, yet it still retains the spirit of innovation and player-centricity that has powered the brand from a hippie co-op to one of the world’s most beloved and popular guitar makers.
But what sets these guitars apart from the rest of the guitars in the Taylor family? Well, here are five reasons to get you started…
It’s a totally new body shape
Image: Taylor Guitars
The Gold Label 814e features a brand-new body shape for Taylor, the Super Auditorium. It’s similar to Bob Taylor’s hugely popular Grand Auditorium style, but altogether quite different at the same time – it’s perhaps the most “vintage” Taylor body shape ever.
“It’s roughly similar to a Grand Auditorium shape, in that it’s a medium-sized guitar,” Powers tells us. “But the set of curves that connect all those dots are different. In my view, it’s a more classically proportioned kind of guitar. It has a little rounder, lower bout, a little tighter waist – I like the way it sits on a player. I like the look of it. I like the feel of it, and I like the sound that it contributes to.”
That sound is an open, blooming one that fills the room with even a light playing style, but still has plenty of power and resonance when you decide to dig in. Thanks to its slightly longer body and that wider lower bout, you get a rich, deep low-end response with round, woody trebles – but one that maintains balance and body across the spectrum in classic Taylor style.
It has the most easily adjustable acoustic neck ever
For over two decades now, Taylor guitars have shipped with the revolutionary Taylor (formerly NT) Neck – a marvel of engineering and design that has made Taylor guitars some of the most easily serviced and maintained acoustic guitars on the planet. For the Gold Label collection, however, Andy Powers wanted to introduce something different – a new design that he had been gradually working on for over half a decade, and actually provided the impetus for the entire guitar.
“It behaves a little differently than our classic Taylor neck in that it somewhat reflects a more traditional neck joint,” Powers explains of what Taylor is calling the long-tenon Action Control Neck. “It allows you to build some of that sound in. What is different, though, is this one is more adjustable than what we’ve done in the past even. This one, the neck angle or string height can be adjusted with just a wrench. So if you’re going to do a neck reset, you don’t take the guitar apart. You don’t even detune the strings. You just simply adjust it.”
Yes you read that right – not only does the long-tenon neck joint offer a more classic and vintage sound compared to the pristine hi-fi nature of the usual Taylor sound, but the action control aspect of the neck design offers an unparalleled ability to tweak the guitar’s neck angle or string height without even removing the strings – making this a guitar that can be effortlessly maintained in a way no other acoustic guitar can be.
It boasts new internal voicing architecture
Image: Taylor Guitars
Back in 2018 Taylor reinvented the internal architecture of the flat-top acoustic with its V-Class bracing – a totally new approach to bracing that had tone-enhancing implications for projection, sustain and tuning. Powers’ revolutionary concept created a more in-tune and balanced acoustic guitar, and the success of the concept quickly became a hallmark of Taylor’s entire range. The Gold Label Collection, however, demonstrates that this concept isn’t just useful for creating the most pristine and accurate version of the classic Taylor sound.
“What if we want to build something with different colors, different sounds, different feels?” Powers poses. “Now, that was one of the elements that the V-Class architecture offered us, that we have only just started to explore. And so as we start to make other iterations, different revisions of ideas, it broadens what it can offer you. So this is a different voicing of a V-Class idea. It actually borrows some elements of a classical fan bracing and mixes some of that element in.”
The result is a guitar that offers more volume, warmth, fullness and depth than you’d expect from a guitar of this size, while retaining the near-perfect pitch accuracy all the way up the neck that has become a hallmark of the V-Class concept.
It looks like no other Taylor guitar
Before you even pick it up and play it, you’re instantly aware that this isn’t a traditional Taylor guitar because it looks so radically different from any other Taylor guitar. While you can get the Gold Label 814e in a classic natural finish, the guitars were revealed in striking golden brown Sunburst – a shade that is brand-new for Taylor and, dare we say it… a little bit old-school.
The embracing of a new-old aesthetic can be seen throughout the guitar – the engraved celluloid pickguard was inspired by the sort of design flourishes seen on 1920s banjos. Meanwhile the fingerboard and headstock feature ornate new “Continental” inlays, while the guitar’s four-piece back features a symmetrical “Simons wedge” construction, named after its creator, Spanish luthier Jorge Simons.
Even the case is a departure from the norm, its deluxe hardshell covered in a British Cocoa-coloured vinyl. It’s a guitar that feels informed by the design language of vintage acoustic guitars, banjos and mandolins – the instruments that have inspired Powers on his luthiery journey, and informed the sonic characteristics of the guitar itself.
Even the headstock is different!
Image: Taylor Guitars
If you’re familiar with Taylor guitars, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the Taylor peghead. But the Gold Label takes the recipe and changes things a little bit.
The shape is still unmistakably a Taylor thanks to those telltale side scoops and the points, but between them is all Andy Powers, “It’s actually derived from guitars that I used to make in my pre-Taylor life,” he explains. “So it’s sort of this melding of things that I used to love, and love making, into a modern Taylor context.”
Even the Taylor logo – one of the most iconic and recognisable brand marques in the guitar world – has been altered to better suit the vintage aesthetic of the Gold Label Collection. Instead you get a script logo that was adapted from something Powers drew by hand during the early conception of the instrument.
The Gold Label collection is a radical departure for Taylor guitars, but it also still has all the essential hallmarks of a Taylor guitar – built by a company of guitar players, for others to enjoy.
“It’s a privilege, because I get to build a guitar for myself, and that’s what inspires me as a guitar player,” Powers concludes. “But what I’m really called to do is build instruments that serve the needs of players around the world, as well as our employees, as well as our suppliers and everybody else who is involved. “This needs to be a great guitar for everyone. That’s what excites me. I think I enjoy that more than just building the one guitar to satisfy my own whims. It’s an exciting thing to go, well, here’s this instrument. Take it. Play it. Go write some songs.”
Find out more about the Gold Label 814e at taylorguitars.com

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