A Chiming Grand Auditorium Worthy of a 12-string Museum
The Taylor Next Generation PS54ce represents the peak of Presentation series 12-string perfection, showcasing treasure-grade tonewoods and trailblazing Next Generation upgrades. This acoustic-electric 12-string guitar’s chiming sound is built upon the king of acoustic guitar tonewoods — Adirondack spruce, which ensures chest-thumping projection and a clear, bright definition. What’s more, Taylor’s Next Generation Scalloped V-Class bracing imparts the top with a touch of extra low-end resonance. Around back, a set of premium Honduran rosewood back and sides features a far denser composition than your typical rosewood — a quality that lends a touch of smoothness to rosewood’s traditionally bright trebles and booming bass. Plug in, and Taylor’s refined Claria electronics faithfully capture the Next Generation PS54ce's complex acoustic character with plug-and-play simplicity. Plus, this PS54ce's Standard Carve mahogany neck and glassy Crelicam ebony fingerboard are joined to the body via Taylor’s trailblazing Action Control neck system, thus allowing users to set the neck’s angle with the simple turn of a bolt. An heirloom-level range of appointments rounds out the PS54ce, including winding California Vine inlays, an inlaid rosewood pickguard, dazzling paua purfling around the body, and a beautifully beveled armrest.
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Premium Honduran rosewood back and sides
Handcrafted in California by Taylor’s world-class luthiers, the PS54ce’s thoroughbred pedigree is manifest the second you open the case and take in the harmonious symphony of ultra-premium tonewoods. Honduran rosewood, used for the back and sides, is a sinuously figured tonewood with a distinctive and coveted sound characterized by its low damping factor, which gives it a richly layered harmonic response with lush, resonant overtones. Boasting clear, bell-like trebles and robust bass-register weight, Honduran rosewood’s creamy, authoritative voice is an ideal match for the PS54ce's Adirondack spruce top.
Plug-and-play Claria System electronics
Road-tested and refined for over two years with the world's biggest touring acts, Taylor’s Claria System represents the next step in the brand’s ceaseless pursuit of acoustic-electric excellence. As opposed to the more sensitive and microphone-like performance of Taylor’s ES2, the Claria System features a single under-saddle piezo transducer paired with a powerhouse preamp to supply you with the warmest, most accurate acoustic-electric tone possible with the least amount of tweaking required — simply plug in, adjust your sound to taste via the Volume, Tone, and Mid-Contour controls, and you’re ready to go.
So, how does the Claria System differ from a typical under-saddle pickup? Taylor’s expert engineers built Claria from the ground up to overcome the most endemic challenges of standard under-saddle setups, allowing the system to perform free from piezo distortion and avoid unwanted frequencies with its clear and focused voice. Moreover, Claria also avoids clipping by gain staging the preamp and the controls within the preamp. As for tone shaping, Claria’s Mid-Contour control offers a vast sweep of dynamic sounds to explore, from smooth, rhythm-ready warmth to a midrange-forward timbre that promotes lead playing and fingerpicking to the forefront of the mix. For the guitarist seeking a plug-and-play system that preserves their guitar's inherent acoustic character and excels in any environment without a fuss, Taylor’s Claria system is as good as it gets.
Rich and responsive Scalloped V-Class bracing
First launched in 2018, Taylor’s V-Class bracing revolutionized the brand’s sound with one of the most innovative advancements in steel-string technology in nearly a century. Here, Taylor has changed the game once again, tweaking the forward-thinking formula of V-Class by precisely paring away material from key locations of each brace.
The result is Taylor’s Scalloped V-Class architecture, a design that preserves all the defining sonic features of standard V-Class bracing with a more muscular bass response and a softer, warmer blend among notes. Strum an open cowboy chord, and Scalloped V-Class delivers the familiar low-end thump and harmonic cohesion that’s most often associated with typical X-braced instruments. However, as a direct descendant of Andy Powers’ original V-Class design, Scalloped V-Class bracing preserves the former’s spot-on pitch accuracy, rich sustain, impeccable balance, and crisp note-to-note definition — especially as you venture farther up the fingerboard with complex chords, intricate fingerpicked patterns, and rapid-fire leads.
Cutting-edge Action Control neck joint
Taylor has led the charge in neck joint technology for decades, from Bob Taylor’s earliest bolt-on experiments to the dawn of the easily adjustable NT Neck at the turn of the 20th century. Under the leadership of Andy Powers, Taylor has once again pushed the boundaries of steel-string design with the Action Control Neck, a trailblazing bolt-on system that allows you to adjust the neck angle without requiring removal of the neck or strings.
From fine adjustments to optimizing the neck’s pitch over the top, the Action Control Neck gives you the power to set your string height from shred-ready specs to a higher, strum-friendly action with the turn of a bolt. Moreover, it also transforms repairs that generally require major surgery on traditional glued-in dovetail joints (such as neck resets) into a straightforward, routine procedure. Best of all, the Action Control Neck’s long-tenon joint protrudes well into the heel to properly mate your guitar’s neck and body, increasing the stiffness of the heel and resulting in a deeper tone with greater low-end resonance, even on higher notes.
Taylor Next Generation PS54ce Features:
- Taylor’s Presentation series PS54ce 12-string guitar treated to all the trailblazing upgrades of the Next Generation collection
- Adirondack spruce top resounds with room-filling projection and punch
- Scalloped V-Class bracing boosts low-end performance and results in a warmer, richer resonance
- Honduran rosewood sides deliver an overtone-dense tone with a smooth and rounded-over edge
- Claria under-saddle electronics system provides acoustic-accurate tones and plug-and-play simplicity
- Soundhole-mounted Volume, Tone, and Mid-Contour controls for quick tone sculpting
- Mahogany neck in Taylor’s always-comfortable Standard Carve profile
- Action Control neck joint system gives users the ability to set the neck’s angle, allowing for easy action adjustment
- Long-tenon neck joint enhances your sound with a deep low-end resonance and a fuller-bodied tone
- 15-in.-radius Crelicam ebony fingerboard laden with California Vine inlays
- Presentation series upgrades include an inlaid rosewood pickguard, a comfortably beveled armrest, and inlaid purfling that enwraps the body, fingerboard extension, fingerboard, and back
- 1.875-in. nut width provides plenty of room to navigate between string courses
