Taylor 117e Acoustic-Electric Guitar - Natural

Grand Pacific Body: Built on the sonic engine of V-Class bracing and inspired by classic acoustic guitar recordings, the Grand Pacific is a round-shoulder dreadnought that ushers in a new era of Taylor tone.

• Warm, seasoned sound with powerful low-end presence


• Clear bass range without muddiness


• Round notes that blend seamlessly into a harmonic whole

Released in 2019 following the successful launch of Taylor's innovative bracing design, the Grand Pacific marks a departure from what many would consider the quintessential Taylor sound: bright individual notes that resonate separately, with plenty of high-end sparkle and and clarity.

The Grand Pacific boasts a dramatically different flavor of sound. Thanks to the contours of the shape (especially the wider waist) and the tone-shaping power of the V-Class architecture, notes are rounder and broader, overlapping to create a more blended sound with a warm, seasoned personality. The guitars also produce stunning power in the bass range, without the muddy, woofy characteristics that create sonic problems, making for a more musical, usable voice in virtually every application. Together with the other fundamental sonic improvements of V-Class—more volume and projection, longer sustain, cleaner intonation, and more tonal consistency from top to bottom—the Grand Pacific brings broader versatility to a dreadnought-style guitar, promising to satisfy players across many genres and musical styles.

With the launch of Taylor's Gold Label Collection, the Grand Pacific body has been adapted to be 3/8-inch deeper than the standard version. This modification applies exclusively to Gold Label models featuring the Grand Pacific shape and contributes to the exceptionally warm, powerful, open response of those guitars.

Grand Pacific Body Specifications: Body Length: 20" / Body Width: 16" / Body Depth: 5"

Sapele Body Wood: Sapele’s tonal output is consistent and balanced across the tonal spectrum, making it compatible with a diverse range of playing styles. It’s comparable to mahogany but its higher density tends to produce a slightly brighter sound with more top-end shimmer.

Origin: Central Africa

Sound: An alternative tonewood that joined the Taylor fold over a decade ago. It’s sometimes mistakenly referred to as African mahogany because it closely resembles the West African wood khaya, which is commercially known as African mahogany. Sapele is a highly sustainable, relatively fast-growing wood. Tonally, it does everything that mahogany does, with a little extra treble zing. Taylor will be able to offer it for a long, long time.

Goes Well With: Everything. Like ovangkol, it’s a great all-purpose tonewood that will deliver a consistent, balanced tone in a variety of playing applications, from fingerstyle to strumming.

Torrefied Spruce Top Wood: By far the most popular and common wood used for acoustic guitar tops, spruce has a long heritage in the music world. In typical Taylor style, Taylor developed their signature recipe for a process called “torrefaction” to make spruce sound even richer and more sophisticated, adding a new dimension to this much-loved wood.

Torrefaction is a process in which spruce tops (before being added to guitar bodies) are roasted in ovens typically used for drying out wood so that it can be worked. The roasting process lends the wood a slightly darker visual hue while also altering its structure slightly to give it new sonic traits. In particular, torrefied spruce tops tend to sound warmer and sweeter, giving them a played-in quality you would expect from a much older piece of wood. While torrefaction cannot replicate the effects of decades of age and play, it does provide a touch of extra sonic depth without losing spruce’s trademark clarity, articulation or volume.

Origin: Canada and Alaska

Goes Well With: Virtually all musical genres and playing styles.

Expression System® 2: The Taylor Expression System® 2 (ES2) is a revolutionary pickup design that delivers the latest in Taylor’s ongoing innovation in acoustic guitar amplification. The heart of the Expression System 2 is Taylor’s patented behind-the-saddle pickup, which features three uniquely positioned and individually calibrated pickup sensors. The location of the sensors enables a more dynamic range of acoustic sound to be captured than ever before. Together with Taylor’s custom-designed “professional audio”-grade preamp, this system produces exceptional amplified tone and responsiveness. On stage through a PA, plugged into your favorite acoustic amplifier, or direct into recording software, the Expression System 2 faithfully conveys the voice of your Taylor guitar.