I've been playing for years ... probably 26 years or so. I started on the piano when I was 5, and eventually started banging around on my father's junky parlor acoustic. To this day he keeps a good one tucked in a case under his bed and mostly plays a death machine garbage picked piece of crap that sits on a stand in the parlor. I try to tell him that life is too short to play junky instruments unless you have no choice but I get better results banging my head against the wall.
I've been playing in electric bands since I was a teenager. About 10 years ago my brother and I started doing an acoustic two piece act. I picked up a $xx alvarez acoustic/electric around that time and it was the nicest acoustic I ever owned. Fast forward a bunch of years and my brother bought a 214ce. That guitar blew me away ... the action and sound and fit/finish were really impressive.
Fast forward a few more years and I'm doing another acoustic act with a friend and the old alvarez feels and sounds ... meh.
I'm generally a cheap bastard, so I trolled craigslist for a while and eventually found someone one town over selling a taylor big baby for $xx. I wasn't even sure what that was, but after being so impressed with my brothers 214ce I took the ride. The guitar was setup for slide, but even with the high action it blew away my alvarez. I bought it and played the crap out of it for a few years.
I ended up sanding down the saddle, adjusting the neck, and installing a pickup in the body. I still have this guitar hanging next to my bed on the wall. She's awesome with lots of pick rash around the soundhole.
Last year I decided to splurge on a really nice guitar. I went to the store and played everything they had (all brands). After several visits (including dragging my wife and friends to listen, and play while I listened) I settled on a 2016 814CE. Man ... this was the nicest looking, sounding, and playing guitar I ever laid hands on. The ES2 pickup plugged into a good PA just blew me away.
Well ... at this point I was basically hooked and obsessed with taylors and nice acoustics in general. Last month I picked up a GS mini Koa for when I travel. I love this little guitar too. The sound of the Koa compared to the other mini models really stood out to me (and the looks are awesome).
So now I'm pretty obsessed with Koa and I think I would like a full size guitar made from that wood.
I have my eyes on a 224ce dlx koa, but then part of me thinks I should just wait and save for a K66 or something similar.
Thanks for reading. Any thoughts/ideas on my next guitar are appreciated
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