Update : More on the Guitar Quandary

I received for a short time a Taylor T5z DLX, so I wanted to provide a quick update on my findings.

The DLX model lacks the beautiful looking top of the Sassafras topped model that I had for the longer review. It is an all mahogany body, and the mahogany just doesn’t have the look of the striped top. That’s not to say it is not very nice, but mahogany doesn’t have the figuring of many other woods. The high gloss poly finish does look really nice, although to my eye, the gloss coat seems a bit thick. I accept that I have a bias towards super thin nitro lacquer finishes. This finish will hold up better over time and will likely protect the top better against fading as the poly finished tend to include a UV inhibitor.

From a sound perspective, it does sound different than the first guitar and I have to confess, that from a purely acoustic perspective I preferred the first guitar. It was, in my opinion, brighter with richer mids. The mahogany guitar sounds like a really thin semi hollow mahogany guitar as one should expect. Warm and balanced and very neutral across the frequency range.

That said, both instruments were designed to be plugged in and judging them solely on pure acoustic merit is unreasonable and kind of foolish. I plugged this guitar into two acoustic amplifiers that were in the room where I did the playability testing. First was an old Fishman Loudbox. It sounded like an acoustic guitar plugged into a Fishman. I know some people love Fishman acoustic products, but I am not one of them. I find that they colour the sound of the instrument too much and guitars with a decent pickup system as the Taylors have comes out too brittle in the top end, and the default tone stack is too wide to adjust to my preference. So that means a lot of tweaking with a narrow band 10 band or more graphic equalizer or better, a proper parametric equalizer where you can set the Q frequencies and the width yourself. I can do it, and have had lots of practice, but for the regular player it adds cost and complexity. The second amp was an AER Compact 60 Wedge that I found as a demo at a store that was no longer carrying AER as they were reducing the number of vendors and required on hand inventory. I understand the business issues and am very happy because it was a win for me.

I’ve said it before and I will repeat myself. If you want the best sounding acoustic amp that is reasonably available, get an AER. They are sadly, not so easy to find but there are good dealers around, with more in Europe than in North America. At present there are very few dealers in Canada.

With the T5z DLX direct into channel one of the AER Compact 60, with none of the built in AER effects enabled, the tone in switch position one (the one that includes the body microphone - see the full Quandary article for pickup detail) the sound is really glorious. Any concerns one might have with feedback were non-existent even at club level volumes. The sound from the DLX, like the first guitar tested, is excellent in positions one and two. The bridge hum bucker is still tinny as I expected and I still think that to get a real electric sound, you need some kind of overdrive in place. I would propose something like a Nobels ODR-1 Mini. The serial pickup selection remains ok, but I found the parallel wiring option to sound better to my ears in the DLX than in the first guitar. I put this down to the wood, not the finish.

The DLX retails for $2,999 CAD MAP, so about $200 more than the basic model. If finish does not matter to you, save the money on the gloss and get one with a top wood that strikes your fancy. If you are particularly gloss finish demanding, then the surcharge may be worth it to you for that cosmetic improvement although if Taylor asked my opinion, and I know that they won’t, they could just put the gloss finish on the base models and then the customer could choose the top wood and still get the better looking (in my opinion) finish. My other conclusions from the long review stand.

Thanks as always for reading. Until next time, peace.