This is my 2nd NGD in three weeks. Two weeks ago I brought my new-to-me K16 LTD to put up against the new Grand Pacifics - first time I had ever played these new models. While the 317/517 I played were not quite as responsive and powerful as the K16ce LTD for the light fingerstyle I primarily play, they did have more volume than my former 324 and had such a nice roundness to the notes (perhaps even more so). Since my only criticism of the 324 mainly centered around volume (or the lack thereof) and the store offered a very favorable trade in for the 324, I'm now the proud owner of a new 317e!
The photo shows the new 317e with its bigger brother K16ce LTD - or is it actually bigger? I'll have to dig out specs of the Grand Pacific versus the Grand Symphony.
In terms of comparisons with the other Grand Pacific models, my first experience was with the 317 and 517. I thought the 317 had slightly more rounded trebles and a more full bass response with fingerstyle whereas the 517 was a touch better at strumming (you can also sort of hear this with Taylor's own sound samples of these on their website). This past weekend at the road show I got to briefly sample the 717 in a fairly loud room and compare it against the 517 - not ideal conditions to say the least but I didn't observe appreciable differences with the light classical fingerstyle I usually play. At the road show demo, they performed a strumming comparison of these two, and to my ear, it was the classical hog versus rosewood differences.
In terms of strings, and this was a concern I had going in when I first tried them, the stock medium G-B-E strings felt quite stiff and were a lot of work for the fingerstyle I prefer. I was fortunate that the K16ce came to me with Elixir light mediums (medium bass, light trebles) and I found that setup maintained the bass I wanted with easier playability on the high strings. My store didn't have any of the Elixir light mediums but they did have D'Addario Bluegrass EJ19s which are essentially the same thing minus the nanoweb coating. So far they are working out great, and I'm going to try the EJ19 on the K16ce soon. In another week of so, I'm going to start a new thread on these medium light strings - there are several variations of these and I had to search all over the place to understand what these differences mean - will post what my research has uncovered in single location - if that is any help to anyone. From what I've read, some people seem happy with the stock mediums, some are using some medium/light combinations (like mine or one of the other variations), a few are using lights 12-53, and I read about a guy on the Taylor owner's group on Facebook that is even using a custom 10-52 extra light set - the bottom line is it seems the Grand Pacifics are offering good performance with a variety of strings.
