One of my favorite guitar quotes "a beautiful guitar, but seemed to lack something, so i sold it and bought a gibson songbird. if guitars were people, the taylor would be kenny g, but the gibson would johnny cash" from a Harmony Central review.
Despite this I have to give Taylor a ton of credit for building fine instruments that many like and developing the "modern tone" to the point that it has become a standard. By emphasizing the playability, the old style necks are gold IMO they really hit the jackpot. I played a 355 and it was as easy to play or better than just about every 6 string I have encountered. While never having experienced it, I have heard enough about Taylor's customer support that the puts the others to shame. Different strokes for different folks with the geezers, and geezer wannabes gravitating to the Guild, Martin, Gibson tones, though each is different. Finally it is the player more so than the guitar, most Stellas were crap, yet musicians who could only afford them made wonderful sounds to the point that high end manufacturers try to duplicate that blues sound. Maybe if Estebans were around back then we would be trying to duplicate the "Estaban tone" :roll:
Harmony H-173 bought in 1960 (retired)
Alvarez AC60S 2008
Eastman AC320ce 2008 BOOKMATCHING BOOKMATCHING WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING BOOKMATCHING!
http://www.massstreetmusic.com/store/sh ... id-Cutaway
GAD-JF30E(blonde) 2008
JF55 1997
D25M 1974
Martin Grand J35E 2009