[slejhamer]

I'll bold when I get to a topic you asked about:

The adverts say it's a 15/16th scale dreadnought. That might be true if you measure from the bottom strap pin to the tip of the headstock, but the body itself is more like 3/4 scale dreadnought. I think it's classical guitar size, but a little thinner.

It has a surprisingly big sound for the size of the body. The back is slightly bowl-shaped - not like an Ovation, but there's a definite rounded hump. 1st-term pregnant woman's belly, for example. I'd think that helps project the sound.

It is NOTHING LIKE the average Korean/Chinese acoustic body. You really have to hold one - I don't think it's for everyone.

First of all, it weighs next to nothing. I couldn't believe how light it was. The finish is a very light varnish, not the thick plasticy gloss you see on the cheaper Asian imports. The back feels very thin and delicate - I would worry about longevity except it has a lifetime warranty. The closest comparison I can make is that the back feels like rosewood used in violins. It's made of "sapele" wood, sometimes called African Mahogany, but I've read that the hardness is more like maple than true mahogany. The top is solid spruce and the neck is American mahogany with an ebony fretboard.

There was a similarly-priced Martin DXM in the room too. Couldn't be more different. The Martin weighed a ton! The Martin had the classic full deep Martin sound, whereas the Big Baby's tone is lighter, more trebly yet still rich - I think of it as a jangly retro sound, and it really doesn't have much deep end. Fits my style perfectly. To use electrical guitars as examples, the Taylor is like a Fender Telecaster with it's twang and single-coil pickups, while the Martin is more like a Gibson Les Paul with its darker sounding double humbucker configuration. Country vs. metal. Different styles entirely.

How much - I paid US$360 after talking the sales guy down. It comes with a Taylor padded gig bag, and comes with Elixir 12-gauge nanoweb strings (relatively expensive) and a Tusq bridge and nut. So that's about 200GBP? Something like that.

Action is perfect in my opinion. It's not as low as on my Ibanez electric, which is very low, but lower than any of the Asian 6s I played today. No fret buzz anywhere. The neck is surprisingly fast. Maybe with 13s it wouldn't feel quite the same, but the 12s feel very good. I was truly impressed by this little guitar's playability and sound. Oddly, I've heard a couple of people complain that the 12s are difficult to fret on the Taylor BB - I find the opposite! This is an amazingly easy guitar to play, and that's THE PRIMARY REASON why I traded the Yamaha for it. None of the others (except the Martin) played like this.

The smell is non-descript. As far as I know, only cedar tops smell good. But it doesn't smell bad, and that's a good thing.

Last, I find this guitar very responsive to finger-picking, which I wasn't expecting with 12s. I'm generally a flat-picker, but I want to get into some celtic style music and need to get better at finger picking - this guitar will be good for that.

Oh, and the soundhole inlay is actually etched into the wood - not a decal!