I had heard a lot of mixed things about these series of guitars. So about 3 months ago I spent a lot of time in my local music store (Music 6000). I played a ridiculous amount of guitars (on a note I have been playing guitar for 14 years and have played most common high end guitars). I started looking at a few of these SE series. For the most part they had nice sound quality/construction and finish and had reasonable price tags (starting at around 499.00 and going up). I came across one they only had one of. It was the PRS SE Semi-Hollow body Custom. It had blonde flamed maple top, with a dark stained mahogony back. What caught my eye was how amazingly finished this guitar was, no pictures that I have seen even come close to well this finish is. There was no price tag, but I decided to plug it in. It honestly was amazing. It had wicked fat clean tones, great distortion, great sustain. Now I mainly play black/tech metal and have a slew of shredder guitars all packed with EMG's, but was impressed with the lead tone on this guitar. Switch to the neck pickup and it had very smooth and solid sweeping tones, handled distortion as well as the bridge pickup. What also really suprised me was how well the action could be setup for Dropped C tuning. It just threw me off how disparate the looks where from the tone. Not that it couldn't do soft I use this guitar for practice as well as recording it sounds that good with metal. The only thing I changed on this guitar was to add Sperzel Locking Tuners, now the stock were great for normal playing, but not for dropped metal. I still gig with my LTD ESP EC-1000, but thats only because I don't want to damage the finish on the PRS. Needless to say even though I had no intention of buying a guitar, I bought that mother that day and haven't regretted it.

So in case you had no intention of reading this. The moral of the story was... IMO the PRS SE Semi-Hollowbody Custom is actually retardedly awesome for metal lead (minus dive bombs) and is probably one of the most well built guitars in the $750 price range.

(stay away from any of the soap bar models)

No intention of reading that whole thing, but all of my experience with PRS so far has been pretty mediocre. They're alright guitars, but you can get WAY better ones in their price range.

You're absolutely right about PRS guitars being awesome. I work at guitar center, and my favorite guitar in the store by far is our custom 24 semi hollow.



Incorrect.

I HAVE several other guitars in that price range, all of them good. But for a nice expressive tone, and the actually looks and playablity of the PRS its a hands down winnder. I play my PRS over my Gibson Mahogony any freakin day.

PRS? more like POS

14 years and still playing metal? kidding ofc. i used to think PRS was the end all best guitar ever built (10 years ago). now i would definately say gretch or older gibsons (for your price range). $750 is a pretty good price i think, the PRS ive played were all way over that figure.

dont think many "shredders" play gretch or gibsons so maybe dont listen to me.

Sorry, but I think PRS are beautiful guitars and i'm so glad they are around. The thing is, it's not the body that does it for me (lets face it, it's just a poor Les Paul shape) but omg at some of the Neck designs. Thats what i love, the beautiful inlays on them. Santana showed me first, and ever since i've just creamed. I think Steve Vai has totally ripped the PRS doves for his Ibanez JEM but thats not a bad thing xD

This post was edited by bob(Cs2) on Aug 22 2009 05:24am