Taylor strings

[erwinem]

I'm thankful I am not the account manager at Elixir strings for Taylor guitar account.

[Lillis]

I think they will probably have to lay some people off by losing that account. I certainly hope not though.

[Guitars44me]

Since they stopped or slowed manufacturing during Covid to put workforce elsewhere, it is certainly understandable.
I am interested in the DA XS and need to give them a shot, I suppose.  But I have a good stash of HD Lights to work through, so it may be a while!

Up until about 3 or 4 years into Elixirs existence Taylor used DAs, but the uncoated ones went south real fast for me, and I didn’t like the tone that much, let alone the SQUEAK

interesting stuff going on.

Play on and use what ya got!

Paul

[Frettingflyer]

I found this news surprising, but I have been using the XS strings on my 322e for some time and really like them on that guitar. I also have a stash of Elixirs to work through too though. I did by mistake grab the XT strings once and didn’t care for them at all on that guitar.
As the OP was pointing out, what a big account to lose. I did use DA’s for a long time on my 314ce and liked the sound but they just didn’t last as long.
Strings are fun to experiment with, enjoy the journey.

[Guitars44me]

Google says Taylor makes 700 guitars a day! I assume that is both factories, El Cajon and Tecate.

They go thru some strings!

I don’t even want to restring more than two at a time.  Hahaha

Cheers

Paul

[Earl]

They go thru some strings!  I don’t even want to restring more than two at a time.  Hahaha

Think about the poor person whose job it is to do the first stringing on all those guitars.   

Taylor makes about 160,000 guitars year, so they buy at least 160,000 sets of Elixir.  That is not counting the repair department and some inevitable waste.  It's surely a tough blow for WL Gore to take in one shot.  However, I'm sure they sell many more Elixir strings around the world.  I was using Elixir strings before Taylor was.  Remember that Taylor went to Elixir strings not because that was what sounded best, but because they lasted better in a retail setting.  With strings that sound fresher than the other guy's, your guitar stands out.  It just happens that many of us also like Elixir strings for other reasons.

Fretting Flyer has pointed out the distinction between XT and XS.  I tried a sample set of XT and was underwhelmed.  But his comments have convinced me to add a couple of XS sets to my next string order, as an experiment.  That may not happen this years given the stock already on hand.  Elixir's will always be a steady part of my string box and get used on several guitars due to the longevity factor.  My twelve strings never see anything else, for example.

[DenverSteve]

It’s certainly a huge loss to Elixir.  I would guess that since Mr. Powers has risen the ranks and changed the secret sauce formula (v-class), he decided to try different strings to bring out the specialness of his new designs.  However it happened, I’m sure Elixir didn’t go down without some genuine begging.

[SDTaylorman]

I think they will probably have to lay some people off by losing that account. I certainly hope not though.

Although that may be true let's focus on the positive. More hiring at D'Addario! 

[beninma]

They go thru some strings!  I don’t even want to restring more than two at a time.  Hahaha

Think about the poor person whose job it is to do the first stringing on all those guitars.   

Taylor makes about 160,000 guitars year, so they buy at least 160,000 sets of Elixir.  That is not counting the repair department and some inevitable waste.  It's surely a tough blow for WL Gore to take in one shot.  However, I'm sure they sell many more Elixir strings around the world.  I was using Elixir strings before Taylor was.  Remember that Taylor went to Elixir strings not because that was what sounded best, but because they lasted better in a retail setting.  With strings that sound fresher than the other guy's, your guitar stands out.  It just happens that many of us also like Elixir strings for other reasons.

Fretting Flyer has pointed out the distinction between XT and XS.  I tried a sample set of XT and was underwhelmed.  But his comments have convinced me to add a couple of XS sets to my next string order, as an experiment.  That may not happen this years given the stock already on hand.  Elixir's will always be a steady part of my string box and get used on several guitars due to the longevity factor.  My twelve strings never see anything else, for example.

If you visit the factory you’ll see it’s something like 5-6 people doing the final check and setup.  They’re doing:

Neck angle
Check frets
Nut
Strings
Test the guitar

Who knows how big each factory is but they’re each doing a lot of guitars every day!

I just got a new Taylor that still came with Elixirs but I’d changed my old one to XT and then XS strings.   I like the XS strings much more than Elixirs.   I think the difference is more glaring on electric guitars but Elixirs feel stiffer in the same gauges and don’t sound as good.   And XS seems to last longer and I have not seen them fray.    They are incredible strings. 

[mgap]

If Taylor makes 700 guitars a day I assume the string up 700 a day or else a log jam would occur.  If indeed the are 5-6 people doing the final test and stringing of said volume, that means  each person is stringing 116 to 140 guitars a day.  My gosh Taylor is running a sweat shop.

[Edward]

A bit OT, but I'll simply say that anyone who's ever done the Taylor factory tour has seen the well-oiled machine that it is.  It's a sight to behold: organized, busy, each station humming along like a swiss watch.  And everyone I had witnessed seemed to genuinely like being there.  If a factory setting can be "beautiful," this is truly one example.  Seriously.

That said, yessiree, that's a whole lot of stringing up they have to do, and no robot can do it.  Yikes!

Edward

[mgap]

I have never been to the facility in Mexico, and I bet that is where the greatest volume of guitars come from.  My guess is that they have a much larger number of people doing the final set up on those guitars.  I believe that Taylor could have just 5-6 people just in California for final set up, and that they could keep up with demand. 

[beninma]

I could probably look through my pictures and find a picture of the setup area.

It wasn't even fully manned the day I was there.   Yes it doesn't make a whole lot of sense given the volume of guitars but they had specific benches and there just weren't that many of them.   Maybe I'm misremembering and their were 10 stations?    But there were 5 or less people actually doing necks & string-ups when I visited, and it was right in the middle of the work week.

It would be really interesting how many guitars El Cajon makes vs Tecate.  Maybe the #s get increasingly smaller as you move up the line.   There were plenty of guitars in progress when I visited but it was not earth shattering.   It's not like they had 1000 guitars on the floor in various states of assembly.   And the # of the really high end ones that were in progress was very small.

It looked like the exact opposite of a sweat shop.. it looked like about the best kind of factory you could possibly hope to work in.  Maybe that comes with working in California but the whole plant seemed extremely well thought out and very clean and they had clearly bought equipment, designed their own equipment, and set up procedures, etc.. to make things safe and convenient for the employees.   As an example it looked like no one works with saws directly at all at the El Cajon factory.. reducing greatly the risk someone cuts a finger off or something.   Nobody building guitars should have to worry about losing a finger!