I have a confession to make—ever since I discovered that Taylor made different versions of the Taylor Baby using different woods, I’ve become slightly obsessed with laying my hands on each one in search of a meaningful bass response. The Taylor Baby is built on a 3/4 scale, meaning it’s 3/4 the size of a standard acoustic guitar. The size necessarily creates a smaller sound chamber and presents the problem of getting a full, rich and mellow tone out of the guitar. After giving the Taylor Baby M a thorough test drive, I believe that I’ve found the version of this little guitar that provides the best low end tones.

The Taylor Baby M is built just like all the other Taylor Baby model, except that it’s an all-mahogany guitar. The back and sides are mahogany veneer, while the top is solid mahogany. The neck is also mahogany, with an ebony fretboard and pearloid dot inlays. The tuners are chrome die-cast enclosed tuners, and the guitar comes in a satin finish.

The first thing that struck me when I first saw the Taylor Baby M was its looks—because it’s an all-mahogany guitar, it has a dark look, and the figuring of the mahogany top is enhanced by the satin finish. The Taylor Baby M is clearly the most beautiful member of the Taylor Baby family—even though it’s built with cost in mind, it surpasses the rather spartan appearance of its kin, presenting an appearance that would make you think that it’s just a little bit more than a $250.00 cost cutter.

A close inspection of the Taylor Baby M revealed an instrument that was constructed with the typical Taylor attention to detail. All seams were tight, and there were no jingles or jangles when I handled the guitar. It had a noticeable lack of heft, but remember, it’s a 3/4 size guitar.

The Taylor Baby M played exactly like its brethren—the ebony fretboard was quick enough, and intonation was pretty consistent up and down the neck. There was a bit of buzzing on the bass E string, but that seems to be a problem that is endemic to these little guitars. The factory set up was good, and the buzzing that I noted could probably be eased with a minute adjustment. As with the other guitars of the Baby family, I executed runs easily, but I probably wouldn’t want to use a capo with this guitar too much—smaller size equals smaller frets, and even though my fingers are pretty agile, fingerpicking past the third fret or so would be tricky.

Now, it’s crunch time—how did the Taylor Baby M sound? Well, I always thought that the standard Baby featuring a mahogany veneer back and sides and a spruce top provided the best bass response, but even that was thin and watered down. The all-mahogany Taylor Baby M goes to the head of the class—while the sound was far from “churchy”, it provided a mellow, balanced sound that went a long way towards overcoming the sound limitations imposed by the small sound chamber. There were still highs galore, but the mahogany top offset them nicely, creating pleasing tones that were much richer and varied than the other members of the Taylor Baby Family.

My search is over—I’ve isolated and identified the Taylor Baby that most approaches the sound of a full-sized guitar. The Taylor Baby M is the one that best handles the small sound chamber dilemma, and I recommend it for the player looking for a good travel guitar.

Thanks for reading.


Recommended: Yes