Taylor Guitars' Koa Series Returns

Jul 30, 2007

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Taylor Guitars is bringing back its popular Koa Series!

Over the past decade, Hawaiian koa, the beautiful and rare tonewood, has steadily increased in popularity, although the supply of high quality koa fluctuates drastically. Taylor has been extremely conservative in its koa usage in recent years, employing koa mainly for tops for the electric T5 Custom, short runs of Limited Editions, and the occasional custom upgrade.

Thanks to the exhaustive efforts of Taylor's wood purchasers, however, a new koa source has been developed and contracted, yielding what company president, Bob Taylor, calls, "some of the most beautiful koa wood I've ever seen!" Beginning in 2007, aficionados can once again buy koa Taylor Acoustic/Electric and Acoustic guitars, while the supply lasts.

The Koa Series Acoustic/Electrics have backs and sides of solid, gloss-finished koa, and Sitka spruce tops. Taylor is offering koa Grand Auditoriums in both 6- and 12-string models (K14ce, K54ce), a Dreadnought (K10ce), a Grand Concert (K12ce) and a koa-topped Jumbo 12-string K65ce (koa tops are an available option on all the other models). The Koa Series Acoustic/Electrics have eye-catching curly maple binding along the body, fingerboard, soundhole, and peghead, and a curly maple heel cap, an abalone top, a single-ring abalone soundhole rosette, mother-of-pearl Koa Series fretboard inlays, and gold Taylor tuners. Each Koa Series Acoustic/Electric is performance-ready, with a Venetian cutaway and Taylor's Expression System® electronics, for unparalled acoustic sound reproduction.

Taylor's Koa Series Acoustics include the first standard koa version of Taylor's industry award-winning Grand Symphony, the GS-K, as well as 6- and 12-string Grand Auditoriums (GA-K, GA-K12), a Dreadnought (DN-K), and a Grand Concert, complete with slotted headstock (GC-K). The Koa Series Acoustics feature solid Hawaiian koa backs and sides, Sitka spruce or optional koa tops, three-ring abalone rosette, gold Taylor tuners (except for the GC-K, which has Taylor slot-head tuners), Ivoroid binding with black purfling, and the Koa Series fretboard inlay.

The Taylor Expression System is an available option on any Acoustic model.

To kick off the koa "revival," Taylor is also releasing two 2007 Spring Limited Editions, a satin-finished Dreadnought (410ce-SL) and a Grand Auditorium (414ce-SL), with upgraded Hawaiian koa backs and sides, and Sitka or optional koa tops. Both 2007 Spring Limited Editions have a Venetian cutaway for comfortable access to high notes, cream-colored body and fretboard binding, mother-of-pearl "diamond" fretboard markers, and the Expression System pickup.

The 2007 Spring Limited Editions are shipping now. The Koa Series Acoustic/Electric and Acoustic guitars will ship in late summer/early fall 2007.