Saturday was NGD!
Ended up buying an 816ce instead of 814ce. The 2012 814ce they had the previous week was sold a few hours before we got to the store. Neither of us liked the sound of the 2011 814ce they had as much as the 2012 one that had just sold, nor the 2012 816ce we ended up buying. Every guitar is truly a little different! I had been vacillating between the 14 and 16 anyway. I loved the 16 just as much, and the bass sound is awesome (as is every other part of the range, actually!)
No pics yet; my cell phone is acting up, but I'll post one soon. Although you obviously can just go to Taylor's site and see one. It looks just like mine, obviously. Mine has a pickguard. Taylor site shows 816ce both with and without guard.
We're both blown away at how nice it sounds. Now my wife's jealous! I knew that would happen! Although she does love her 214ce. As do I.
I chatted a bit with another customer who owns a 414ce which he plays amplified at his church as their worship pastor. He said he had been wanting an 814ce, but it was pointed out to him that if he's always going to play amplified, the 414ce was a grand cheaper and would sound almost identical when amplified and equalized. Good point. And if I were mostly going to play like that, I might have opted to save the thousand bucks myself. But I mostly play solo, unamplified, and the additional tone of the 800 series vs. the 400 was worth it to us.
It's got awesome playability. But the frets are sometimes just a little too buzzy. The guitar store salesman and I both thought the action was just a tiny bit low, but I decided to play it a while and see what I think. I'll probably have it adjusted when I'm ready to change the strings.
We'll see. No biggie. It won't take much of an adjustment to get rid of most of the buzzing. It'll always have some if it's strummed hard, but right now I'm getting some with gentle finger-picking on some strings/frets.
We also bought a Fishman LoudBox Artist. Just for the heck of it, I guess. I knew we'd eventually have an amp, so now we have that to play with too. It's going to be a fun summer!!!
