I'm so familiar with all the opinions around place of manufacture and branding, having dealt with and thought about them myself since the 80s, that there's just nothing left for me to take offense over.
Em7 says some factually true things and mixes them with both inaccuracies and subjective mystical opinion.
I am sorry to say that you still do not own a PRS guitar.
Did my post say I have only SEs? In fact, I have both Core and S2. (And forgive me if I doubt the sincerity of your sorrow.)
You own a manufactured by Cort under contract guitar.
I've been familiar with Cort-manufactured guitars since the 80s. I don't like the
name (which strikes my ear as unpleasant) nor their brand logo, so try to avoid them (I'm fastidious about some tiny irrelevant things). But I've never played a bad Cort, and proudly own a Cort Sunset baritone. The fact that some SEs are built by Cort is a
good thing in my book.
I have said it many times. An SE is a PINO (PRS In Name Only) guitar. It is guitar built to a price point that lacks the heart and soul of a guitar made in Maryland
I'm sure you have! I get that SEs are built to a price point. (Guitars don't have hearts or souls. People do.)
The Cort factory uses different tooling than Stevensville. Almost all of the processes are different.
True!
The reality is that while being a good value for the money, the SEs are not built to the same standard as Stevensville guitars.
Half-true. I submit that SEs
are built to the same standard. They're just built differently, in a different place, to sell for a different price. At least in my experience, the build quality, fit and finish, consistency, and QC are as extraordinary as Stevensville's.
If you have never been inside of the Stevensville facility, tours of Stevensville and the Cort factory that builds SEs are on YouTube. Cort uses a very different build process. A neck takes a long time to make at the Stevensville facility because they remove a little wood from the blank and then let it rest. They repeat this process until the name is shaped. That is a big part of the reason why the necks on Maryland-made PRS guitars are so stable.
Yep, all good. The necks on Cores
are extremely stable; I would agree that they're more stable than those on the SEs.
You can disagree as much as you want, but it will not change the reality.
But we're not discussing "reality". We're discussing its
interpretation and our attitudes toward it.
The fact that SEs carry the PRS name was a big mistake on PRS' part. Fender and Gibson used completely different brand names for its contract manufactured guitars. PRS muddied the waters.
Hundreds of thousands of guitars made outside the US wear the Fender - not Squier - logo. And who will argue that Gibson's home-grown product is built to a better standard, with more consistency and more thorough QC, than their Epiphone brethren?
I internally chuckle when a guitarist says he has a PRS and pulls out an SE. I do not want to hurt his/her feelings,
... but you invest the time and effort to "hurt someone's feelings" online? (Not to worry, mine aren't hurt.)
but it is not a PRS guitar. SEs are not built by PRS employees; therefore, they are technically PRS in name only.
Do Core and S2 guitars contain any components not made by PRS employees? Do those components dilute the pure blood of guitars built by people drawing a Stevensville paycheck?
That is why buyers who understand the difference, but are on a budget opt for S2s. S2s are real PRS guitars.
I understand the difference! I know what I'm getting in every case, taking each on its own terms, and I've opted for all three. What's wrong with me?
Given that the SEs are built, not just under license but under the directions and supervision of - and collaboration with - Paul's company, I'm pretty sure
Paul considers them to be PRS guitars.
It matters less to me
where the guitars are built than
how they're built - and how well. Those things are publicly acknowledged and documented (as is not the case with, oh, say, Duesenberg). The exhaustively accurate pedigree on the backs of SE headstocks makes the source clear. It can be taken as a disclaimer or mark of dishonor (for those inclined to see it that way). I
like that it's there, because I have as much respect and gratitude for the people who build the guitars in Korea, China, and Indonesia as those who build the S2s, CEs, and Cores in Maryland. If anything, it's
more impressive that they're building so much guitar, so well, at the SE price points than that the Marylanders build the others at
their price point.
______
And happy us, it's
all good.