A strong 12-string guitar, featuring choice tone woods and Taylor's groundbreaking acoustic technology.

These days, many guitar players are discovering Bob Taylor's newest, boldest acoustic sound for the first time. The reaction has become fairly predictable: love at first strum.

As with the GA, Bob had a fresh sound in mind that he felt he could deliver through a new shape. The challenge was to create a bolder flavor of Taylor's signature tone without sacrificing balance or crimping the clarity. The deeper, fuller, louder Taylor GS-K-12 Acoustic-Electric Guitar boasts a rich, piano-like bass; girthy midrange; and thicker trebles. The extra horsepower of this Grand Symphony series instrument invites aggressive strumming and picking, and even if some tradition-bound bluegrassers might initially resist embracing a non-dreadnought shape, the sound has converted many serious flatpickers and flat-out floored scads of acoustic lovers across a full spectrum of musical styles.

The power of the Taylor GS Acoustic-Electric Guitar is balanced by clear articulation and responsiveness to a lighter attack that welcomes fingerpicking, yielding a broad swath of dynamic range. Within that range, a rich, nuanced topography of expression is waiting to be explored.

The depth of tone in this 12-string guitar conveys a sense of instant maturity among players who are attuned to the ways a guitar tends to open up after an initial period of being played. "What I loved most about the GS," Acoustic Guitar magazine's Teja Gerken wrote in a review of the GS, "was its openness and the complexity of its fundamental tones—both of which belie its young age."

A guitar that's old before it's time. . . and that's a good thing.