Builder’s Edition Taylor’s cutting too many corners for premium pricing?

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by jim1960

Bindings are often made of wood so they're not likely to take the impact any better than would the top wood. Now if your argument is that they are easier to replace if damaged, that would make more sense but how often does that even happen? The only people I know who have had to replace the binding on a guitar are those for whom the binding separated due to shrinkage. For anyone else, those little dings happen over time and I can't see how it makes any difference if the binding is dinged or if the top wood edge is dinged.

As for possible moisture damage after a ding, again, many bindings are made of wood and just as susceptible to moisture damage. The extra protection of a wood binding seems pretty minimal to me. And if that's something that really concerns the owner of the guitar, the exposed wood can be sealed whether it be an exposed wood binding or an exposed wood edge of the top.

Just for the record, I'm not anti-binding. I'm just saying that I accept that top bindings are almost entirely for the aesthetic and that any protection they offer is so minimal that by not having the top binding a guitar is no more likely to fail than a guitar with a top binding. But if in a few years we see all those Taylors failing at some abnormally high rate, I'll happily admit I was wrong.

Thank you for making the point that plastic binding is actually more protective than wood.

[SleepyAudi]

Sort of seems lien Gibson and Martin are ahead in terms of handcrafting. It’s still not a pure hand mad experience but all the examples will be different in smaller ways and Taylor is the opposite where they will be very similar.

[Taylor Ham]

Originally Posted by Br1ck

The goal of any business is to extract the most profit they can from what they make. Taylor is as good as any and better than most. Bob Taylor and Bill Collings were their generation's best innovators, each in their own way. Taylor's machines are a wonder. That they can spray a finish with perfection is mind blowing. Their marketing is mind blowing.



Taylor's neck joint has saved probably millions of dollars by now. None of this is passed on to the consumer. It's sold as a benefit by marketing. A perfectly executed business plan.

I think this last part is a bit unfair. If they cared only for money, they would probably have stuck with the earlier bolt on butt joint, and set the neck angle by sanding for a few seconds in a jig like godin guitars. instead, now they have a neck block extension under the fingerboard, cut a pocket behind the heel and under the fingerboard, fit shims to both. They have an aluminum pillar in the heel and insert under the fingerboard threaded for the bolts.

And all of that doesn't offer any benefit to the consumer? Taylors have the easiest and most precise neck adjustment on the market, short of using a Stauffer style clock key.

[phavriluk]

Taylor developed precision mass production of their guitars. Only manufacturer I know of who will sell me a replacement neck, sight unseen, and it will fit without any fettling and fussing.

Taylor replaced the neck on my GS Mini over some delamination on the headstock veneer. I talked with the staff member who did the repair, it was easier and faster to swap the neck as opposed to remove, repair, and reinstall.

My guitar was off the repair bench ten minutes after it got on the bench, the day after it got to El Cajon. And then shipped out. How long do Martin owners wait for warrantee work?

[wvblues]

Originally Posted by Street Glider

Honestly, to me, this sounds like a guy trying to justify charging $13,000 for one of his guitars...

When this guy first started posting on YouTube (not that long ago) - I was very skeptical of him and still am. I'm sure he makes a fine guitar but I personally find him to have very little humility and quite an amount of arrogance surrounding his videos and his persona on camera. I personally have never agreed with super high end boutique instruments and found it hard to justify certain prices. That said, the best guitar I ever played was a Henderson D so I understand the price because of supply and demand and the general economics.

But I digress. I think videos like this should be taken with a grain of salt because it is one man's opinion. I personally think that scarf joints and mortise/tenon/bolt on/ dovetail arguments and hide glue debates are a bit senseless. Those are my opinions. What I look for is probably entirely different from others.

It's just a video. A guy's opinion who's made a few guitars. He's still inevitably just a man.

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by SleepyAudi

...the PRS Core custom 24 gold top is CNC’d to spec yet costs $1500 more than a Gibson gold top despite Gibson having far more trained hands working to complete the guitar over a longer period of time.

IME, the PRS is a much better built and finished guitar than the Gibson.

Regarding pricing, what is the average price range of a Taylor BE guitar?

[SleepyAudi]

PRS is nice no doubt nice. Imo overpriced considering it’s all CNC to the last detail.

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by SleepyAudi

PRS is nice no doubt nice. Imo overpriced considering it’s all CNC to the last detail.

Maybe that's what Gibson needs to do, therefor, to build a better guitar?

[SleepyAudi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Scott

IME, the PRS is a much better built and finished guitar than the Gibson.

Regarding pricing, what is the average price range of a Taylor BE guitar?

$3k usually $400 more than standard for the series

[Br1ck]

Originally Posted by Taylor Ham

I think this last part is a bit unfair. If they cared only for money, they would probably have stuck with the earlier bolt on butt joint, and set the neck angle by sanding for a few seconds in a jig like godin guitars. instead, now they have a neck block extension under the fingerboard, cut a pocket behind the heel and under the fingerboard, fit shims to both. They have an aluminum pillar in the heel and insert under the fingerboard threaded for the bolts.

And all of that doesn't offer any benefit to the consumer? Taylors have the easiest and most precise neck adjustment on the market, short of using a Stauffer style clock key.

You are perhaps a bit too thin skinned regarding Taylors. I was not anything but stating a complement to the Taylor business model. I did say perfect business plan. Develop a neck attachment that works and sell it to the marketplace overcoming the dovetail mystic. Not an easy job. So you develop a design that works, convince a skeptical public that it works, sell it as a benefit, and pocket the manufacturing savings. That is good business. Period. The goal of making guitarists happy is not the goal of any guitar maker, it is a byproduct of developing a product the consumer will buy. Running a profitable business is, much like a deli making a sandwich you keep coming back for.

I played Taylor #6. I knew immediately they were going to sell a bunch of them to electric guitar players looking for an acoustic based on the neck alone. I have no idea what the neck joint was at the time. No one really cared. It played and sounded pretty good. Who knew what was in Taylor's future?

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by SleepyAudi

$3k usually $400 more than standard for the series

Thanks for that real-world information.



I'd pay that just to get the much better looking (IMO) bridge used on the BE instruments than the stock one which I never liked the look of.

[Brucebubs]

Builders Edition? Is that the body with an exposed butt crack?

[Taylor Ham]

Originally Posted by Br1ck

You are perhaps a bit too thin skinned regarding Taylors. I was not anything but stating a complement to the Taylor business model. I did say perfect business plan. Develop a neck attachment that works and sell it to the marketplace overcoming the dovetail mystic. Not an easy job. So you develop a design that works, convince a skeptical public that it works, sell it as a benefit, and pocket the manufacturing savings. That is good business. Period. The goal of making guitarists happy is not the goal of any guitar maker, it is a byproduct of developing a product the consumer will buy. Running a profitable business is, much like a deli making a sandwich you keep coming back for.



I played Taylor #6. I knew immediately they were going to sell a bunch of them to electric guitar players looking for an acoustic based on the neck alone. I have no idea what the neck joint was at the time. No one really cared. It played and sounded pretty good. Who knew what was in Taylor's future?

You're right.

Taylor's business and marketing may be strong, but alot of the things they do have real benefit. I feel compelled to state that when people are opposed to it for other reasons, but instead dismiss the design.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Br1ck

The goal of any business is to extract the most profit they can from what they make. Taylor is as good as any and better than most. Bob Taylor and Bill Collings were their generation's best innovators, each in their own way. Taylor's machines are a wonder. That they can spray a finish with perfection is mind blowing. Their marketing is mind blowing. On the Collings side look only to Waterloo.

Each can form their own opinions regarding cost. Some will buy, some won't. But Taylor's main objective is to sell product at a profit. So is Martin's. My own opinion is that I pick up a new guitar and ask myself, do I want to buy this for $4,000, or yesterday's wonder for $2800. Since I'm not ding and dent adverse, the choice for me is easy. Others will want pristine, and expensive, the more expensive the better, for the exclusivity. Ideally, all manufacturers will want to have something for everyone. They do that very well.

A very time consuming process for Collings is the binding on the headstock for their F style mandolins. They solved the problem by CNC cutting the whole binding from one piece of plastic. Done perfectly with no labor and no joints, it costs them only waste plastic. Yet most would say it's a benefit.

Taylor's neck joint has saved probably millions of dollars by now. None of this is passed on to the consumer. It's sold as a benefit by marketing. A perfectly executed business plan.

If you don't think there's an economic benefit passed on by Taylor to their customers who buy guitars with the NT neck joint, then simply wait twenty years and take a Martin and a Taylor in for a neck reset.

As far as what's under the hood, I'll take an NT joint any day. Whoever showers praise on "traditional dovetails" hasn't seen many of these when they are opened up, and particularly what's done when they go back together. Yikes!

The Taylor takes 30 minutes while you wait and costs a fifth of what the Martin reset will cost.

Anyone who hasn't priced out the CNC that Taylor uses, as well as factoring in the years of research and the cost of the support staff necessary to keep all this going is being unrealistic about what Taylor shouldn't charge for because it's "almost free" to them.

The good thing is there are many reading this topic that realize the basic premise is in error.

The lack of binding isn't a bad thing, and can offer benefits that Taylor in particular, pass on to the consumer. Look no further than the entire Academy series, where unbound bodies let Taylor throw in the body bevel at no additional cost to the consumer.

Another point about the cost savings for unbound bodies is that it requires great precision to do unbound bodies that look good. Taylor and Martin both use some trickery to get that accomplished, and either company charges a higher price for bound bodies in the same basic style. So much for anybody not passing on the savings.

It is true that earlier versions of non-wood bindings were enlisted in manufacturing not only to serve as a protective edge, but it also sealed the edge grain of solid tops against rapid moisture fluctuations. Modern finishes now do the same job without the need for plastic binding. It's pretty obvious that synthetic bindings have some inhearant problems, and some companies know how to do it and some don't.