I went to a Taylor Road show this week. First time in had to be almost 10 years. Nice to hear Marc Seal play, I had seen videos of him on the web, but he's a talented player and it's a great way to compare shapes and tone woods when you have someone playing familiar songs, but played well. Ironically for a mostly acoustic crowd, the big finale was playing a custom T5z plugged into all kinds of effects (delay, reverb, etc.) and a guitar amp - I think it was the solo to Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd. I can see why he finished with that, it was awesome to hear. On the T5z, impressive flexibility, if I were playing local gigs that would be under serious consideration, as you can go from acoustic to jazz box to flat our electric with the flip of a switch.
A bit of a disappointment was the assortment of custom and BTO models they had. Nice, but nothing just stunning to tempt me. Could have just been a function of selling out of the nicer stuff along the tour, who knows. One noticeable difference along those lines from 10 years ago related to this - I was less impressed in general visually with the guitars present, but I think only because anyone like us searching the web is pretty much familiar with the complete range of possible samples of any particular model. When you have been able to look at 100 different K26ce models across the world really, in photos, you start to realize what the truly best specimens or samples can be like, and the average one just seems a bit less impressive as a result. So maybe I've just become spoiled along the way... with the internet you can be like Oscar Wilde "I have the simplest of tastes, I like the best of everything."
While I played a new 900 series, a brazilian rosewood BTO and a few others (the "petting zoo" atmosphere is just that, and awful to judge tone with all the chatter and other players), I didn't feel one pang of interest. The only lasting impression was an all mahogany model, likely a 500 series, I didn't even pick it up, but after hearing Marc play it and gazing at it, I had a better appreciation for mahogany's appeal. If there is a new guitar in my future, it might be a GC all mahogany in edgeburst finish. We'll see if that feeling lasts...
Thing I enjoyed most? Meeting and talking to other guitarists - such a great time sharing common interests and shooting the breeze. Sat next to a guy who played professionally back in the day - with David Crosby among others. Nice to see some young folks there too.
Couple of comments on tonewood availability. Bob Taylor has said "release all the Brazilian rosewood until it's gone". He's done storing it for all these years, and so you'll see a flow of guitars coming out with that for a while. They did say you can do BTOs with Brazilian, I think they said the wood sets for that ranged from $6K to $10K. I asked about Cocobolo. The rep said he doubts Taylor will ever have it again, just can't trust the South American and Mexican (drug cartel) supply chain to supply legitimate wood, so they're bailing on trying, too much hassle and too many other tonewoods to pursue and use. (You'll see more maple stuff, and others) So the old "Redwood guard"... Brazilian, Cocobolo, etc. may have had its run in general and Taylor seems to be looking forward in time to other possibilities.
