Taylor Big Baby Acoustic Guitar Review

Taylor Big Baby

My search for a fantastic acoustic guitar for my nieces son started one day after she had called for my guitar buying advice. Since he was rather tall for his age, and he also had long fingers, there should be no problem with him dealing with a full-sized dreadnought or a concert sized guitar.

I have given acoustic guitar lessons for a lot of years and I have seen many people select the wrong guitar for their children. I didn’t want to see that happen with this little guy.

After trying several guitars that matched the price range they were looking to stay within, I landed on the Taylor Big Baby for him. This guitar is a 15/16 size dreadnought, which puts it slightly smaller than the full-sized guitar versions, such as the Martin D-28. A few great features of this guitar is that technically it is a travel guitar, in that the neck comes off very easily. It can then be packed or toted very easily, and he could bring it to college in a few years too.

Guitar Features: 6.5 Stars

Taylor Big Baby Fretboard

This is a very fundamental dreadnought guitar, that is just a bit smaller in stature from full sized Taylor or Martin Acoustic Guitars. The size of this guitar most closely replicates the Martin 000 Concert, although it is dreadnought shaped. That makes it very comfortable to play. Although it does sport a solid Sitka Spruce top, there is no protective binding trim that is typically present to protect the outside edge from damage.

The fretboard is ebony and the neck is a bolt-on variety that easily comes off for compact packing and traveling purposes. You will note that there are a couple of ugly screw heads located in the surface of the fretboard to facilitate the neck removal. I had wished that they could have handled that a bit more discretely. (this is shown on the image to the left. Note that this is a Baby Taylor and not a Big Baby model, but they are handled the same.)

The back and sides are constructed of Sapele High Pressure Laminate, and the tuners are Grover-like, cast chrome plated, and seem to work rather well. Although I spotted some issues with workmanship, there was nothing too alarming that could compromise instrument longevity or performance.

Big Baby Sound Production: 6.0 Stars

I selected similarly priced guitar produced by Martin, Fender, Yamaha and Takamine, and the Taylor was in my estimation, a better deal for the money.

While this can make an excellent flatpicking or fingerstyle guitar, it leans quite a bit toward a more treble tone, typically because of the laminate back and sides, I would imagine. The sustain of this guitar is very good and as I mentioned it is a little heavy on the treble side, but the projection is quite good.

One of my favorite features of this reasonably priced guitar is the solid Sitka Spruce top. The solid Spruce top will just get better and better with time and you will find that the guitar tone will begin to mellow out with some age.

Action: 7.0 Stars

Right out of the box this guitar did need a bit of help with setup, and string height, but this is not uncommon with guitars in this price range. Certainly if you will be getting into some difficult fingerstyle or flatpicking passages, you will want to lower the action to a certain degree. If you want to tackle this yourself, here are a couple of articles that will guide you through the process. How to Lower Your Saddle Guitar Nut Adjustment.

Durability of This Guitar: 8.5

The Big Baby is a very dependable guitar and you will notice that it is rugged and will take a certain amount of abuse. A binding around the top edge of the guitar would have been appreciated as a sharp rap to the fragile end grain of the Spruce top could result in the start of a crack.

You will get greater crack resistance with the high pressure laminate back and sides as contrary to solid wood back and sided guitars.

Customer Service: 10.0 Stars

The original owner of a Taylor Guitar gets a lifetime warranty on the instrument. You will find that warranty issues are taken very seriously with the Taylor technical support division. Each customer and instrument is stated as being unique and thus very crucial to them. They are perfectly willing to work with you on any issue, no matter how minor or silly it may seem. You can conveniently obtain technical support either by phone with their toll-free tech support line, or if you prefer you can contact them on-line.

Taylor Big Baby Overall Score: 7.6 Stars

Although I think this is a outstanding guitar at this level, it is not any more than a great starter guitar, gig guitar, a guitar you can use to tote around to college, the beach or whatever.

I would term this guitar a stepping stone guitar. One that you would start out on and graduate to a much better platform as you progress in your musical capibilities. For a guitar in this price range this is about as good as it gets, and the people at Taylor pulled it off.

I would recommend that you purchase a good case for this guitar as it really deserves one. additionally I would put a warmer sounding set of strings on it once the Elixir strings are worn out.

In this price range, I felt this guitar blew away much of the competition in tone, volume, and action and this is a guitar that deserves by rating of 7.6 stars.