lazerdriver
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2022
- Messages
- 17
I am curious to know if anyone with a Hollowbody II SE Piezo has had it converted to use a Core piezo system, and if so how you felt about the results? Would it be a major difference or would it be a “meh” difference? Or has anyone ever compared the SE piezo to the Core piezo and thought the Core piezo was significantly better?
I recently got the HBII SE Piezo and have not been too impressed with the piezo part of it. The top is really nice flame, better than many I’ve seen and I like it in general, but the piezo just sounds muddy to me no matter what I do to eq it on my amps cleanest settings. On the other hand I have a Godin LGXT, which has the individual piezos per string and it is clear as a bell, although that guitar also has a built-in 3 band eq for the piezo.
I checked with PRS tech support and the Core piezo conversion costs about $850 for parts and labor including piezo switch. I currently have the guitar at PTC for some warranty work, so now would be the ideal time to do it if I were to do it. And if I wanted to go full blown conversion to Core HBIIP electronics and replace the pickups as well that would add another $650 ($500 for the 58/15LT pickup set and $150 to install them). I paid $1200 for the SE new (sale price plus $200 credit from seller due to two issues I discovered after getting it - for which the warranty work that is now being done). So my total investment in the guitar would end up being $2700 which is approaching about 40% of the cost of a Core HBIIP 10-top, or about half the cost of the figured-top version. Or just do the piezo upgrade for total investment of $2050.
Alternately I could just keep it as-is and sell it in a few years, then get the Core 10-top (or figures-top) version. Should I expect to be blown away by the Core version, or would it be just a marginal sounding/feeling/snob-appeal upgrade? Th SE version has a few aesthetic features I like over the Core, like neck and f-hole binding and ebony fingerboard. While the Core has the phase iii locking tuners, better inlays, solid figured or 10-top and mahogany sides. Not sure if those things alone would justify the 40-60% cost increase over just upgrading the electronics on the SE. The problem with the high end PRS is you almost have to just buy them on faith and reputation. It’s not like you can just walk in any guitar store and they have a couple of them available for a test drive.
Is all this just stupid? If I did these conversions would it be unrealistic to expect to get any of that back if I were ever to sell it in the future? I’m not as concerned about that as I am that I would get it done and the “wow” factor would just not be there.
This is my first PRS so I would be interested to hear some opinions or experiences of some of the PRS enthusiasts out there.
I recently got the HBII SE Piezo and have not been too impressed with the piezo part of it. The top is really nice flame, better than many I’ve seen and I like it in general, but the piezo just sounds muddy to me no matter what I do to eq it on my amps cleanest settings. On the other hand I have a Godin LGXT, which has the individual piezos per string and it is clear as a bell, although that guitar also has a built-in 3 band eq for the piezo.
I checked with PRS tech support and the Core piezo conversion costs about $850 for parts and labor including piezo switch. I currently have the guitar at PTC for some warranty work, so now would be the ideal time to do it if I were to do it. And if I wanted to go full blown conversion to Core HBIIP electronics and replace the pickups as well that would add another $650 ($500 for the 58/15LT pickup set and $150 to install them). I paid $1200 for the SE new (sale price plus $200 credit from seller due to two issues I discovered after getting it - for which the warranty work that is now being done). So my total investment in the guitar would end up being $2700 which is approaching about 40% of the cost of a Core HBIIP 10-top, or about half the cost of the figured-top version. Or just do the piezo upgrade for total investment of $2050.
Alternately I could just keep it as-is and sell it in a few years, then get the Core 10-top (or figures-top) version. Should I expect to be blown away by the Core version, or would it be just a marginal sounding/feeling/snob-appeal upgrade? Th SE version has a few aesthetic features I like over the Core, like neck and f-hole binding and ebony fingerboard. While the Core has the phase iii locking tuners, better inlays, solid figured or 10-top and mahogany sides. Not sure if those things alone would justify the 40-60% cost increase over just upgrading the electronics on the SE. The problem with the high end PRS is you almost have to just buy them on faith and reputation. It’s not like you can just walk in any guitar store and they have a couple of them available for a test drive.
Is all this just stupid? If I did these conversions would it be unrealistic to expect to get any of that back if I were ever to sell it in the future? I’m not as concerned about that as I am that I would get it done and the “wow” factor would just not be there.
This is my first PRS so I would be interested to hear some opinions or experiences of some of the PRS enthusiasts out there.
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