Good deal on Taylor American Dream AD17 for only £689

thermionic

Kind of glad they’re gone, I might have bought one and put my 310 for sale! I love the woody matt-finish feel of my GS Mini and play that much more than my dread these days.

markj

stonevibe said:

markj said:

Sold out. 
Glad I jumped on the deal.

I knew they were about to sell out, as I get a heads up for work. 

Really appreciate the heads up.

Thanks Mark.

goldtop

+1

I'd only recently asked which acoustic dealers did Black Friday discounts, too.

Tannin

Taylor has been marketing aggressively of late. Over on this side of the globe, they rand a big 2-for1 offer, and now they are doing it again. (Buy a "proper" Taylor and they give you something else, such as a Baby Taylor for example.) 

The days of the global shortage and rapidly increasing prices are G O N E gone.

(Would someone please knock on Martin's office door and make sure they got the memo.)

Jez6345789

Big thumbs up for the AD 27. Own one and love  it.
The GTUrban Ash I should love shorter scale for the old hands etc but i find it a very polite guitar with a limited headroom pick single notes or two note chords sound fine as long as a light touch is used more complex chords just mush. Strumming full chords just sounds yuk.

I have a personal theory effectively the GT is a double o size guitar give or take and it would seem V class bracing does not work so well with smaller bodies, to restrained bass, so instead of having to eat their own words and go and X brace they came with a dog leg shaped bracing called C class. Sure it works but to me despite playing the arse out of it for 6 months it’s not opened up or got any better.

so it pretty close to getting the back taken off shaving out the C and just giving it a good old Martin  spec X brace

some people like them  but my Koa mini knocks spots of it for bass and nice minds and a sweet top end way more versatile and engaging. 

Gandalph

goldtop said:

Oh dear. I didn't want that big AD17, but the Urban Ash GTe (all solid, US made bigger bro to the GS Mini) that I was umming and arring about is also 40% reduced: https://www.thomann.de/gb/taylor_gte_urban_ash_spruce.htm

(FYI, for those who wanted a GS Mini with a wider nut, this is 1 23/32in! Not quite 1 3/4in.)

£888 shipped on one of these is a bloody good deal.
Played one at Richtone and quite liked it.

Did you go for it? I’m tempted.

goldtop

Gandalph said:

goldtop said:

Oh dear. I didn't want that big AD17, but the Urban Ash GTe (all solid, US made bigger bro to the GS Mini) that I was umming and arring about is also 40% reduced: https://www.thomann.de/gb/taylor_gte_urban_ash_spruce.htm

(FYI, for those who wanted a GS Mini with a wider nut, this is 1 23/32in! Not quite 1 3/4in.)

£888 shipped on one of these is a bloody good deal.
Played one at Richtone and quite liked it.

Did you go for it? I’m tempted.

Yes, I did. I wanted a small-ish mid-range all-solid (that wasn't made in China) as a feel/tone contrast to my dreadnought. The Alamo and Acoustic Letter videos on the GTe were pretty persuasive.

I might have gone for the mahogany version, but Thomann were not discounting it.

Gandalph

@goldtop, I think the blacktop walnut back and sides would be my preferred choice. 

Hard to turn down the ash at that price though. Enjoy it when it lands! 

markj

Gandalph said:

@goldtop, I think the blacktop walnut back and sides would be my preferred choice. 

Hard to turn down the ash at that price though. Enjoy it when it lands! 

I'd have preferred the Blacktop but at the price I couldn't not buy.

Gandalph

markj said:

Gandalph said:

@goldtop, I think the blacktop walnut back and sides would be my preferred choice. 

Hard to turn down the ash at that price though. Enjoy it when it lands! 

I'd have preferred the Blacktop but at the price I couldn't not buy.

Same. Been looking for a new travel guitar or something to take out and about since I sold the Gretsch. 

guitarjack66

Tannin said:

Taylor has been marketing aggressively of late. Over on this side of the globe, they rand a big 2-for1 offer, and now they are doing it again. (Buy a "proper" Taylor and they give you something else, such as a Baby Taylor for example.) 

The days of the global shortage and rapidly increasing prices are G O N E gone.

(Would someone please knock on Martin's office door and make sure they got the memo.)

It seems Martin has become so comfortable in it's own brand recognition that it doesn't feel the need to try to compete. Gibson has been doing it for years too. It's no surprise that budget brands are eating into that complacency. I dont mean Taylor is a budget brand of course but more that they are seeming to recognise the high quality competition and trying to compete with it. While Martin is a sought after brand I would hazard a guess that there are lots of equally or better made guitars below their price range. I'd go for British/European custom built over Martin if I had that sort of cash. So many experienced players are saying Martins are not what they were.

markj

guitarjack66 said:

Tannin said:

Taylor has been marketing aggressively of late. Over on this side of the globe, they rand a big 2-for1 offer, and now they are doing it again. (Buy a "proper" Taylor and they give you something else, such as a Baby Taylor for example.) 

The days of the global shortage and rapidly increasing prices are G O N E gone.

(Would someone please knock on Martin's office door and make sure they got the memo.)

It seems Martin has become so comfortable in it's own brand recognition that it doesn't feel the need to try to compete. Gibson has been doing it for years too. It's no surprise that budget brands are eating into that complacency. I dont mean Taylor is a budget brand of course but more that they are seeming to recognise the high quality competition and trying to compete with it. While Martin is a sought after brand I would hazard a guess that there are lots of equally or better made guitars below their price range. I'd go for British/European custom built over Martin if I had that sort of cash. So many experienced players are saying Martins are not what they were.

I had a Martin HD28 reimagined earlier in the year but just couldn’t justify keepin it with being a 90%+ electric player so the Taylor coming at such a great price was something I couldn’t turn down.

Dave_Mc

&$*%!

Missed it. I didn't see it on time. Thomann doesn't have an email newsletter you can subscribe to (or at least if it does, I couldn't find it). I didn't need one, but I'm not sure I could have passed one at that price- the American Dream one, I mean. I haven't tried them, but all the Taylors I've tried have been great, and I doubt it would be any different. Only problem with Taylors is the price (well the pretty modern tone too, I guess, but I don't really mind that), and that deal negated that...

Even the urban ash one seems like a pretty good deal, but I'm not sure how sensible a smaller guitar is... have to admit I was sort of thinking about it until I realised (because of this thread) that there'd been an even better deal, lol.

Thanks for the heads-up, though I hope they're great for the people who got one

Tannin

^ The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Dave_Mc

Tannin said:

^ The perfect is the enemy of the good.

LOL yeah

I mean, to be fair... I just missed it. I forgot to check Thomann, I thought it wasn't Black Friday yet, lol.

goldtop

Gandalph said:

@goldtop, I think the blacktop walnut back and sides would be my preferred choice. 

Hard to turn down the ash at that price though. Enjoy it when it lands! 

Sort of agree. Urban ash is a complete unknown for me (for all of us, I suppose). I'd always associated ash with heavy solid body guitars, but there's an interesting Taylor video on YT that goes into the particular species and the reasons for the choice.

Now that the GT shape has a number associated with it - nn1 - I think we'll see versions with more traditional wood choices and higher trim levels. But for sure, it's Taylor's answer to those who wanted a GS mini but a bit more of everything.

Dave_Mc

So GAK has the AD17 now for £909 (and the GTe urban ash one for £1014). That's still probably a pretty good deal, but it is more along the lines of "a good deal if you were already considering buying one" rather than Thomann's (admittedly already sold-out!) "hard to pass even if you didn't need one!"

Whitecat

Thomann still have a non-e GT urban ash for cheap - https://www.thomann.de/gb/taylor_gt_urban_ash_spruce.htm - if you don't need the pickup...

goldtop

The non-electric version of the GT was still available at Thomann when I looked yesterday - around 100 cheaper at around £790, IIRC.

Dave_Mc

Thanks @Whitecat and @goldtop ; That's still £100 more than the AD17 was, and I'm not sure whether a small guitar is a good idea or not- I chickened out of the GS Mini several years back for that reason! The GT seems slightly bigger, but it's still not full-sized (scale seems to be just over 24" while the GS Mini is just under 24", I think).