513s

We get to 250, and everyone clams up. Come on people.;)

Fun facts. My PS 513 is 3 years old as of yesterday, it's DOB is 11/5/13. It's PS number, 4615, is divisible by 5 and 13. And, my oldest 513 will be 12 in January, but I got it on 5/13/2005. My 509's DOB is 5/13/2016. 513 has been very good to me.
Yo, I've got PS 4616. We were thinking similarly a while back.
 
To me 513 has been sacrified not evolved into something. The 513 was unique by its switching options, the 509 is not - same routing like e.g. Brent Mason.
 
Yes. Yes. The 513 switching is unique. While the switching is its selling point, it is also the target of many critics not least of which was Orkie, PRS head of QC back in the old days. He said as he was setting up one of mine, "The problem with the 513 is that by the time you figure out what tone you want, the song will be over." His point was not all of us are rocket scientists. I think 509 addresses that.

That being said, as much as I wanted to see the 509 put into production, I did not want this. But, the thing is we have been here before. In 2010, the 513 vanished from the line up, only to reappear as the 25th Anniversary, and then it vanished again only to become the 513 Maple Top a year later. There was even a time when the 305 was listed in the new line up, and the 513 was not. However, every time the 513 has reappeared, it has lost a little bit of itself. Become a little less unique. A little more core. Gone are the Brazilian rosewood necks and fretboards, the scalloped nuts, the modern birds, the PC Boards, and the 513 neck carve. To me, it seems that the 513 has been sliding away from itself for awhile, and this is the inevitable result. If things have to change, then I am glad it is the 509 and not some transparent effort to lure the Fender driver like I thought the 305 was.

But there is hope, the CE-24 was gone for years and now it's back. The McCarty underwent an extreme makeover and became the McCarty 2, that flopped and now it's back in several exciting new models. Who knows, maybe the 513 will comeback. We'll see. Until then, I don't plan on selling the 513's I have, but I am really liking what I am hearing from the 509. So, give it a chance, will ya?
 
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I never understood the 'complex switching' comments. It's just a standard strat switch with a 'thickness' lever. Why is that complicated?

I no longer have any 513's, but I think it's a shame if the model has gone.
 
1.800 repetitions lead to automatism.
After a while there is the experience to know blind where which voicing is. My opinion.
Of course there is nobody outside with your amount of 513 knowledge, @Dancing Frog.
I've got the luck or bad luck of late birth getting into touch with 513. First time noticing that model in summer of 2011.
BRW or RW necks in general aren't my personal must have items, such as the scalloped nut or the 513 birds.
PCB has it's beneficiaries likewise hum cancelling, because point to point cables are like antennas and require a lot more effort on shielding. I remember PRS did once advertising for PS 513, in which transparent tones by hand-wiring have been described.
513 - yes the RW models - has been rewarded two times and subsequently as the electric guitar of the year by an international jury. Using that for gaining sales never took place. This would have been not my marketing approach to be calm with such a reward. But the 513 remained special interest.

To me personally - based on your words - a 509 won't deliver other voicings than my 513. SC and Clear Humbucking. Of course switching between the different modes at treble or bass differ a 509 from a 513.
But it is haptically an advantage switching a blade switch and two mini switches lying not in the same direction that two blade switches nearby?

The CE example is nice, but the reissue has only the name. Other top carve, Asian SE/S2 hardware, SE/S2 Bird material. The origin CE was fully Core USA.

The 509 comes not with the routing of Treble and Bass together. Does the middle SC gives such a sound? Therefore PRS quit that option?
 
Haha - mine was the summer of 2011 as well. I'd own a 509, sounds like it gets close to that Strat quack I like. As George states, it has disappeared on occasion. Recalling the video where Paul talked about these he said something along the lines of people buy them so we make them. Makes me wonder if the business decision is the key factor that the 509 and 513 could not coexist.


Many people have made comments that the pick ups are odd on mine, it's heavy and I have 12-54's on it. It's neck is the fattest and it's the prettiest being my only 10 top. I'll keep mine as there is nothing else like it.
 
The settings for the thickness lever are thin, thicker, thickerer.
Chunky-Wrapper-Small.jpg
 
Only I'd call them: bright, thick bright, thick!

I always found it easy dealing with the 513 switching. 509 is like 408 (or brushstroke 24) to me with a middle SC that I do not use alone too much.
And though the noise in SC mode might be more on the 513 than on the 509, I liked that SC tone more than SC on the 408 or brushstroke 24. Can't really explain it, but they sound more like SC on steroids to me. 513 SC tone is a class(y)ic SC tone to me.
Wonder, if People who bought a limited 509 are disappointed it becomes a production guitar now. I was a little, as P24 trem came in 2014 right after the P24 trem experience 2013 (okay, slightly different woods and PU's).
 
Wonder, if People who bought a limited 509 are disappointed it becomes a production guitar now. I was a little, as P24 trem came in 2014 right after the P24 trem experience 2013 (okay, slightly different woods and PU's).
I can only speak for me. I am not disappointed that the 509 has gone into production. After I played the 509 for the first time, I was more upset that there were only 10 available worldwide and that so many people would never hear what this thing sounds like before it vanished as an oddity into the next PRS Guitar Book. I suppose if I was just a collector rather than an advocate, I might be a little disappointed, but I don't buy guitars to stick them in a vault. I am hoping to get one the first production 509's, so I can do an evaluation of the differences. However, where I am disappointed is that it has replaced the 513 in the current production line up. That makes things a little bittersweet.

BTW, the SC tone on a 509 is a classic tone which is slightly different from the 513. It's closer to strat and tele territory all things being equal, but it's still its own unique voice. It's not like a 408 at all even though the 509 electronics are based on the 408. However, it is less noisy than the 513.
 
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Your core 513 are supposed to be all equipped with PCB, could the more fenderish voicing is a result by changing to hand-wiring?
 
Your core 513 are supposed to be all equipped with PCB, could the more fenderish voicing is a result by changing to hand-wiring?
No, it's even more Fenderish than my PS 513 which is hand wired. The 509 has practically the same woods as the PS with the exception of the fretboard. It's Kingwood vs Brazilian rosewood. They both are in the same genus, so I don't think the contributions are that large. The real differences are in the DC resistance, the 509 singlecoils have lower values than a 513. It's in between the 513 and a typical Strat. So, I am pretty convinced that it's the pups and the electronics that are chiefly responsible for the differences along with some contributions from the Kingwood and the Phase III trem.
 
Maybe less windings of the wire.
That's what I would suspect. It would also be the reason for it being clearer in the humbucking mode.

I ran both guitars on single coil mode through tone matching on the Axe-FX II XL and found that the 509 is slightly more mid-scooped with a bit of a bump in the upper mids over the PS 515. There is also is a little bit of a notch at somewhere just above 2000Hz which probably is why the 509 has less of a nasal quality. Interestingly, when I looked at the raw spectra of both guitars, I found that both guitars spectra were relatively flat out to a certain pivot point, and then they both rolled off. The 509's pivot point appeared to be at a higher frequency than 513 which is the reason for the bump in the upper mids and why it sounds fuller.
 
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Why are you writing all that @Dancing Frog ? Might make me want to try a 509, but I wanna be disappointed the 513 is gone :(
Do you by any chance have a comparison of the SC Mode of the 509 and a Brushstroke 24 (or Paul's Guitar, they both have the narrow Version of the 408 PU's)?
And you know, if you say they're all different it'll make me wanna try the 509 ;)
 
It's a little frustrating that PRS doesn't publish the pickup specs for either the 509 or the 513. It would be nice to understand exactly why the 509 is more fender-esk. Is it winding, output voltage, wiring, phasing, neodymium iron boron magnet strength rating? Ideally they would offer 2-3 pickup options on the 513/509 so we could all rest easier with the (possibly temporary) departure of the 513. You can choose between 59/09, 58/15, 58/15 LT, etc, but mum is the word on the PRS single coils swaps.

This concludes my rant.
 
It's a little frustrating that PRS doesn't publish the pickup specs for either the 509 or the 513. It would be nice to understand exactly why the 509 is more fender-esk. Is it winding, output voltage, wiring, phasing, neodymium iron boron magnet strength rating? Ideally they would offer 2-3 pickup options on the 513/509 so we could all rest easier with the (possibly temporary) departure of the 513. You can choose between 59/09, 58/15, 58/15 LT, etc, but mum is the word on the PRS single coils swaps.

This concludes my rant.
Yeah, it is. But, couldn't knowing all this information possibly compromise trade secrets that PRS is protecting? 513/509/305/DC3 pick ups are bobbin-less. The wire is wound directly onto a blade magnet. That's the process that's being protected. You'd think that there would be pictures on the internet showing the internals by now, but surprisingly, no. So, this secrecy is doing a good job so far.
 
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