The most substantial change in the newest addition to Taylor’s entry-level 100 Series is the introduction of a layered sapele back and sides, which pair nicely with solid, matte Sitka spruce tops to generate a warm, bright personality. But that combination seems to achieve a sort of ideal in the form of the 112ce-S grand concert, which manages to sparkle sonically, but also feel incredibly comfortable and impeccably playable in ways that you see in much more expensive instruments.
Made to Cradle
Regardless of your tone aspirations, it’s impossible to argue the comfort of cradling a grand concert body. Generally speaking, a grand concert is about the size of a classical body shape (which has a few centuries of refinement behind it), and it won’t feel entirely alien to a player who’s spent most of their time on the electric side of the fence. Nor will it threaten to dislocate your shoulder after a couple of hours the way a dreadnought can if you’re of smaller stature. And the way it fits more naturally against the body lends itself to more nuanced playing techniques. The 112ce-S seems to multiply all these benefits. And, at times, it genuinely feels like an extension of your own body.
The pleasure of holding the 112ce-S is enhanced even more by the excellent playability of the instrument. We’ve grown used to experiencing unsurpassable playability on Taylor’s high-end instruments—most notably that magic blend of low action and freedom from fret buzz that facilitates fast and easy fretting and navigation over the length of the fretboard. The 112ce-S couldn’t live much more squarely in that sweet spot. Intonation on our review guitar is dead on. And, remarkably, the Taylor traveled from our video team in a sweltering hot Nashville to cool, foggy Northern California and arrived almost perfectly in tune. I’m not sure exactly what Taylor does to make these instruments so stable. My tour of the company’s California plant some years back showcased a combination of CNC manufacturing and careful hands-on touches that yielded very high-quality instruments. My guess is that the Tecate plant is using the very same construction techniques to excellent effect.
Evidence of careful craftsmanship is easy to see elsewhere. Apart from a trace of errant glue spread around the kerfing, the guitar looked perfect on the inside. Outside, the guitar is pretty much flawless. The 3-piece maple neck, in particular, is a gem. It's capped with an ebony fretboard, and its lovely profile—almost a cross between a C and an oval—fills the hand and feels substantial without feeling too bulky. Expressive moves like finger vibrato feel natural and easy. And like the rest of the guitar, the neck feels conceived to eliminate playing fatigue. In concert with the low action, it makes playing for hours a breeze. The classy looking Venetian cutaway has its benefits, too. It’s easy to play a lead right up the 19th fret and hear that top note ring clear, true, and free of buzz.The Middle Ground
Grand concert bodies, in general, have benefits beyond comfort. In my experience, they tend to record exceptionally well, especially when mahogany is in the mix. They aren’t too bossy or boomy. They shimmer when recording rhythm parts, and they are even and detailed when tracking fingerstyle. The 112ce-S is capable of all these same feats, but it really excels in the fingerstyle realm. The guitar’s midrange leanings give the 3rd, 4th, and 5th strings a snappy reaction to a soft touch. The top two strings ring with a warm and chimey glow around pronounced transients. And the bottom string blooms with overtones that surround a round and robust transient attack. It’s a beautifully balanced instrument in this setting. It awakens and enlivens chord melodies that move up and down the length of the neck. It feels just as balanced and alive in capo’d settings, and requires little to no retuning as you move a capo around the neck. In stage performance terms, these attributes make the 122ce-S something of a fingerstylist’s dream.
Strumming is less flattered by the Taylor’s midrange-forward voice, though it is certainly far from brash or unpleasant. The same pretty bass response that you hear in fingerstyle settings remains evident when you take a flatpick to the 112ce-S. But the strong midrange that makes the 112ce-S feel so alive in soft fingerstyle situations does become an especially strong flavor if you hit the strings hard. The guitar sounds much prettier when you use a lighter touch and a thin flatpick. Played this way, it’s easy to hear how the 112ce-S would shine amid stacked rhythm parts on a recording or when tracking alternate, overdubbed chord voicings with a capo. Strummers with a heavy hand, or for whom that style is a foundation of their playing, may want to look elsewhere. But if strumming is just a part of your songwriting vocabulary, the 112ce-S may fit perfectly into your mixed approach.
The Verdict
For just under 800 bucks, the Taylor 112ce-S is, in most respects, a steal. And while it’s effectively an entry-level Taylor, I would have no qualms about touring or recording with this thoughtfully executed grand concert. The Expression System 2 electronics make it good-to-go for gigging, even though they benefit from careful EQ from the onboard controls or a pedal to eliminate boxiness. However you put the 112ce-S to work, though, it’s a surefire pleasure—particularly when you consider the impressive value it represents.
Taylor's Best Under $800?! The Taylor 112ce-S Grand Concert Demo | First Look
Maggie Mélange
The Starlite is something of an early-’60s Magnatone mashup. The name is borrowed from a series of Maggies from the mid ’60s best known for their arresting “squiggle” grill cloth. But the cabinet design and circuit are more closely related to the Custom 210, a 5-watt, single-6V6GT-powered rival to the Fender Champ and other small amps of the time, distinguished by the inclusion of Magnatone’s rather legendary vibrato circuit.
Sadly, there’s no vibrato on the new Starlite. The inclusion of the effect would have likely made the amp exceedingly expensive for its size. But the flexibility of the Starlite’s circuit is still extra impressive thanks to a clever tone control and a negative feedback switch that, as we will see, can profoundly transform the sound and tactile experience of playing the Starlite.
Just like every new Magnatone we’ve seen since the company’s 2014 resurrection, the Starlite is both sturdy and exceedingly handsome. I can’t think of an amp that’s less likely to disrupt the design of a well put-together living room. And its compact 17" x 8" x 12" dimensions might make it look—to less guitar-savvy interior-design-enthusiast friends—like a beautifully restored vintage radio or hi-fi speaker.
The Starlite’s construction is robust. Its smallest components, like caps and resistors—which number fewer than 30, by my count—are neatly arrayed on a glass epoxy PCB. The power transformer is from Hammond, and the power and preamp tubes are Apex-matched JJs—a 6V6S and 12AX7 respectively.
Tiny, Toneful, and Brutish
Though the benefits of using a small amp in a recording situation are well documented, there are limitations to such setups. Sometimes an 8-inch speaker won’t offer the bass response necessary for inciting a certain kind of performance. Lower wattage and smaller speakers can also change the way pedals like fuzz and high-gain overdrive respond to your playing in adverse ways. But if ever there were a 5-watt, 8-inch-speaker-equipped amp with the flexibility to help bridge those gaps, it’s the Starlite.
Much of the Starlite’s versatility is derived from its very flexible tone control. Magnatone suggests that it helps bridge tweed and black-panel Fender Champ sounds. And to some extent that is very true. Counter-clockwise from noon, the control scoops out progressively more midrange, which is a hallmark of black-panel Champs, resulting in exceptionally crisp, sparkling high-end output and honking, modest bass response with low to moderate amp distortion. Cranked to the gills, as any black-panel or early silver-panel Champ fan knows, this tone profile can sound pretty brash and splatty—particularly with single-coils. That’s where the midrange-boosted clockwise half of the tone control becomes invaluable.
Warmly saturated overtones can give you the confidence to lean hard on the amp at full volume without fear of being too piercing.
Clockwise from noon, the added midrange starts to massage and round off harsher transients while increasing saturation to the lows and low-mids, adding flattering contours to 5th- and 6th-string output and a satisfyingly distorted edge to high strings. Because of the Starlite’s class-A single-ended circuitry, there isn’t any of the tweed sag you associate with amps like the Deluxe—at least in the clinical sense. But these warmly saturated overtones can give you the confidence to lean hard on the amp at full volume without fear of being too piercing.
The beauty of both of these tone settings, and the many cool in-between shades available through the control’s ample range, is that the Starlite is super responsive to guitar-volume attenuation. You can very easily set the amp up at wide-open volume and move from aggressive crunchy tones to clean ones with a slight adjustment of your instrument’s controls.
The amp’s response and distortion makeup can also be completely reshaped by the negative feedback switch. With the switch on (a configuration that sets the amp up as Fender designers of old would have intended), the Starlite’s distortion tends to be warmer, and clean tones tend to be less spiky. In general, the negative feedback “on” settings were more satisfying and versatile to my ear. But in the moments I hankered for extra Mike Bloomfield-style sting, taking the negative feedback out of the mix was an enticing and thrilling option.
The Verdict
At $1,299, the Starlite is 100 bucks more than Fender’s excellent ’57 Custom Champ. And I suspect that for many potential customers, the more expansive and flexible tone control, negative feedback switch, output for an 8-ohm external, and the dashing, less-common styling will be worth the extra cash. Even if you find the head-to-head tweed-style comparisons a toss-up (and the Starlite is not, strictly speaking, a tweed Champ equivalent), the Maggie arguably has an edge in versatility. In its most black-panel-like settings, I still found the Starlite throatier, more massive, and even a little more sparkly on top than my otherwise sweetly ringing early-’70s silver-panel Champ (which is identical to a black-panel in most respects). The same qualities also make it a little more conducive to use of boost, overdrive, and fuzz, which, by the way, all sound fantastic-to-fantastically-trashy in tandem with the Maggie.
Such margins of advantage may be slim to modest in each comparison. But when using a small amp in the studio, where creating the illusion of a bigger amplifier is often the aim, the Starlite’s knack for lending a little extra illusion of mass and muscle is no small consideration.
Magnatone Starlite Demo | First Look
