Website says that the current SE Custom 24-08 has 85/15s pickups. In 2021 they had TCI-s pickups.
The new SE standard 24-08 has TCI-s pickups and is 300 dollars cheaper. Is a maple cap that cost intensive?
Seems weird they change specs all the time or do they just make mess of the specs on their website?
The TCI pickups are named after the Process and were the 'first' Humbuckers to use that process when the Paul's guitar was updated. Those pickups were called TCI (not 408's as they were the 408 neck Pups).
PRS then released an SE version and thus created the TCI 'S' version of that. They opted to use the same pickup in the SE Santana SC and Anniversary 24-08 whilst the 'standard' Cu24 still had the 85-15 'S' pickups but the Core 24-08 had 85/15's
To me, this is just them making the SE more akin to the Core version instead of using 'Pauls' guitar Pick-ups which, whilst good, are different. The Core has 85/15's and now so does the SE.
The standard is an all mahogany body and I believe slimmer. That takes away the maple cap and the 'book match' veneer. Its not 'just' the material differences but that has an impact on the amount of extra man-hours and work that it incurs. The body has to be 'carved' before the veneer goes on to get the top carve right - can't do it after as that would cut through the veneer. This has to be carefully glued up after carving to ensure the thin veneer is book-matched and centred, then has to be trimmed and all the holes (Pup cavity, pots, bridge fixings etc) have to be re opened. They have to be very careful with finish sanding as you don't want to sand through the veneer. Finishing too is more handwork, applying stains by hand to ensure the grain and colours are in keeping with their 'core' counterparts, making sure the grain filler for Mahogany doesn't get on the maple etc etc. That's where the 'extra' costs are incurred.
With a Standard, once you have your 'rough' body blank (2+ piece Mahogany), the guitar is CNC'd to shape, finish sanded (much easier as no thin veneer that could rip off or sand through) and often stained as a 'whole' (not a different colour on the front).
Anyway, the takeaway here should be that the TCI 'S' pickups are NAMED after the TCI pickups they are based on which are found on Pauls guitar. The 'S' versions were initially created for the SE Pauls guitar and for whatever reason, PRS have chosen to use these in other models and Santana wanted to use them (no coil split though) on the SE Santana SC. That's just the 'NAME' of the Pickup that was made overseas to go into their 'SE Pauls' guitar!
