Hey Guys - I really wasn't sure what to expect with this one. After being blown away by my former 324ce BE in tone and looks (the best I've ever played or owned in both aspects), I was really bummed when I came to the conclusion that my playing style of anchoring my arm on the top edge of the lower bout was not compatible with the armrest coupled with the silent satin finish and led to a very slippery and unstable platform. When I sold it, I was unsure about whether to custom order the 324ce BE without the armrest and perhaps with a more conventional gloss finish, or to perhaps try a 327, as I had loved an older 324ce I once owned with the hog/blackwood combination but wanted more volume out of it. As I was pondering this, out of the blue, Taylor announced the availability of the American Dream series. What drew me to this model over the 327 was the sapele back/sides. Sapele and Urban ash are supposedly closer to genuine Honduran mahogany versus Blackwood, which is a koa relative. Since I just adored the tone of the 324ce BE with urban ash back/sides, I reasoned that sapele was likely to be closer to that tone - so I took the plunge and ordered the AD27e.
I think I nailed it! I've only had the guitar for a day, but its tone seems nearly identical to the 324ce BE -With the added bonus of noticeably increased bass response, which wasn't a huge surprise. For strumming and anything else I do with a pick, I think grand auditoriums are perfect all-round instruments, but when I start using my flesh only fingerstyle to play the Bach cello suites, when I try to get that cello like tone and sustain in the lower register, in particular low G on the E string, the oomph is just not there - on any grand auditorium I've ever played (oddly enough, for me Taylor's grand concert bodies don't have this issue even though these won't have the depth of sound of the grand pacific). With the 324ce BE I remedied this by using a 56 gauge low E string but this AD27 is even more powerful than that out of the box. There are only two relatively minor things I miss about that 324ce BE - the Gotoh tuners and the beautiful edge burst. The AD27 has the stock Taylor tuners which are perfectly fine but they are not as nice as the Gotohs - and the mahogany stain doesn't have the burst finish either and it has more of the Martin 15 series look - which I think is elegant in its own right. But in terms of tone and performance, this guitar is an upgrade and I couldn't be more tickled.
A word about the aero case - this thing is a BEAST - it is no joke that it is noticeably heavier than my woodshell Martin dread case. I remember reading about this case and I assumed it was a slight upgrade over the hard gig bags that are included with the GS minis, Academy series, etc. I would go so far to say that this aero case is not a gig bag at all, but a hard case with gig bag like straps/handles etc. It seems very protective and I'm very impressed.
I would like to hear the forum's thoughts about the longevity of hard cases with latches versus a very well made case like this with a zipper. I've always been old school when it comes to using traditional hard cases, etc. This case is obviously super well made, but zipper closures and the like have me wondering how this will stand up in the long run. The zipper is the only obvious potential failure mode I can see for the future and hard cases/latches would seem to be more reliable in the long run - but this is pure speculation on my part - what do you guys think?
