Is this a construction defect in the neck/body? Used SE Hollowbody II Piezo purchase

Vis-a-vis the disparity in Piezo and Mag Pup volumes ~ I don't have an SE, but I have a core Hollowbody II piezo, and I can attest there is a significant volume difference between the piezo and magnetic pickups when mixed through the same output.
I have an SE HBII Piezo. The volume disparity between mags and piezo is normal.
The Piezo has a trim pot on the board to reduce gain and I did adjust mine so its more unity with the mags.
That last quote is the appropriate thing to do if you want "unity gain" between the two signal sources. They don't need to be different: adjust the piezo signal down, or raise the mag pups a bit closer to the strings, or combo of both.

I have a few Core piezo-equipped PRSi, and they are all relatively even in signal strength. In fact, I believe on my SC HB II the mag pups are slightly hotter, which works for me in how I use them with that guitar.
 
I wouldn't say that is 'abnormal' for a set neck guitar. The neck itself looks like it has enough height for the HB's and Bridge to set the action. It does look as if the Bridge is a bit high - hence the action seems 'high' too.

If the bridge sticks up quite 'high' above the Body and the 'neck' was much lower in the Pocket, you'd never get the bridge low enough to have any 'decent' action at the high end of the fretboard. The Pocket should be cut to position the neck 'high' enough off the body that 'bridge' (or saddles) can be raised/lowered to adjust the action. It looks as though you have 'room' to lower the bridge and thus reduce the action here but if the neck was much lower in the Pocket, you'd never get the bridge low enough to make the action playable...
 
Thanks everyone for the excellent advice and feedback. I've been a PRS owner for a long time but haven't been on this forum - bought my first "high end" guitar - a CE22 - brand new in 1996 when I was 16 years old (mowed many, many lawns for that!), recently purchased a mint 2020 Core Tremonti (my dream guitar for over a decade), and then discovered the SE HB II Piezo - which I'm definitely going to keep after all of the great info I received from you all. Thank you again!
 
Here are some photos of mine for comparison. I’ve had it a year and love it. No complaints, everything about it has been excellent. I did buy in person from my local dealer, who is also a friend and my regular tech/luthier so it was set up perfectly from the jump. Hope these are helpful.

6335-BF39-69-B1-441-E-A635-FD28315-DCA8-E.jpg

This makes me think the heel, or neck pocket on the OP's guitar may not be cut correctly. The maple binding at the end of the fretboard on yours starts right at the top of the pick up ring but on the OP's it looks like there is a fair amout of neck showing and then the maple.

I'd run it past PRS I and see what they think.
 
Just to follow up on this, I sent photos and the serial number to PRS. They confirmed that the neck pocket is indeed within spec. Since I've decided to keep it I have changed strings, adjusted the bridge and pickup height, and it's much better! I'm still getting used to it, but am optimistic it'll be a keeper!
 
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That neck looks normal. Here's a pic I just pulled off of Reverb. Looks the same.


tKxelnS.jpg
I had the same problem and had to send my HB back to guy on Reverb. I think the pic above is just like and NOT like most of the ones I've seen. That raw wood portion is completely covered by the neck humbucker ring and there is still plenty of adjustment to get the action low. The bridge had a very large gap from the body on the one I had with perfect action...lots of adjustment down left over. I compared mine to the one shown on the PRS website and that portion of the raw wood is covered up by the humbucker ring. The neck pocket is CNC cut as is the heal for the neck so there should be little tolerance there. Always some tolerance with wood of course but not this much on a CNC'd part unless someone messed up. It ends up putting the strings 3-4 mm higher off of the body between the pickups (than my Paul's SE for instance) and requires the bridge pickup to be extended way out and still not far enough to be very loud. And if you rest your fingers on the body when playing at times then it's a bit of a reach compared to other guitars especially with small hands. And the other issue was that this neck was ultra fat and ultra wide, more like an LP. 1 3/4" at the nut wide and almost 3 mm thicker at the 12th and 2 mm wider than the fat wide Paul's guitar I have. All that caused me to send back what was a beautifully figured top and great sounding guitar. I just decided I could not live with the discomfort no matter how good it looked. I easily play the wide fat neck on my Paul's SE wide fat but not this one. Cost me $127. in shipping cost and the seller relented and didn't charge a restocking fee or the original shipping cost. And I've been looking for a long time for a nice blue one and will start my search all over now. I will only buy if I can try this time and I know what to look for at least. There are zero blue ones available in my area, San Diego. I am considering a brown one that just came up on craigslist but the owner says the neck is a baseball bat in size but I'll have a look anyway, lol.
 
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Just to follow up on this, I sent photos and the serial number to PRS. They confirmed that the neck pocket is indeed within spec. Since I've decided to keep it I have changed strings, adjusted the bridge and pickup height, and it's much better! I'm still getting used to it, but am optimistic it'll be a keeper!

Factory Spec set-up does not always mean that it's set up to your preference. It's often 'playable' once tuning is adjusted out of the box for the vast majority of players but that doesn't mean you can't adjust it to suit you 'perfectly' - and that goes for 'core' guitars. They are set up so you could go straight to 'stage' but some would prefer to tweak it more to their preference first.

That's the 'first' real stage of bonding with the guitar, tweaking it to suit you, your style of playing etc and that's because you are making it 'yours' not a generic guitar - the first bit of 'customisation' and feeling more like 'your' guitar.

That's where the journey begins...

Here's to a long and enjoyable journey with this new instrument....
 
Factory Spec set-up does not always mean that it's set up to your preference. It's often 'playable' once tuning is adjusted out of the box for the vast majority of players but that doesn't mean you can't adjust it to suit you 'perfectly' - and that goes for 'core' guitars. They are set up so you could go straight to 'stage' but some would prefer to tweak it more to their preference first.

That's the 'first' real stage of bonding with the guitar, tweaking it to suit you, your style of playing etc and that's because you are making it 'yours' not a generic guitar - the first bit of 'customisation' and feeling more like 'your' guitar.

That's where the journey begins...

Here's to a long and enjoyable journey with this new instrument....
Yes but if the bridge is already set to where the action is very low and the neck pocket is 2-3 mm shallow, that results in having to move the pickups out to where they suit you, easy if there's still enough adjustment of course. But this will leave the strings 3-4 mm further off the body between the pickups than nominal, maybe not an issue for some with larger hands and fingers. The bridge on the one I had was way out to compensate for the shallow neck pocket as were the humbuckers but I could see the original owner had the bridge humbucker way out and even resorted to a JB humbucker, pretty hot, to help.

And I noticed right away that playing it felt very strange from my strats, two PRS's and LP. The body felt far away from my right hand fingers which were left "out is space" since I just don't have any extra length to compensate for that lol. I thought that only a LP pickguard would take care of that and mess up the looks as well so was not an option. Nothing else to tune or adjust to make that guitar fit me and regretfully sent it back. And the 12th fret thickness was 1.03" and just felt way too fat for me too (61/64" in the nominal spec) and wider than the spec by 2-3 mm too. It was also 1/3/4" at the nut but thicker there by only 1 mm. Not like my Paul's wide fat at all which while thicker than the wide thin PRS I have is still very comfortable for me. My lesson was always buy one you can play first, especially used. I took a chance on a really nice looking one and lost. I knew the risk.
 
Yes but if the bridge is already set to where the action is very low and the neck pocket is 2-3 mm shallow, that results in having to move the pickups out to where they suit you, easy if there's still enough adjustment of course. But this will leave the strings 3-4 mm further off the body between the pickups than nominal, maybe not an issue for some with larger hands and fingers. The bridge on the one I had was way out to compensate for the shallow neck pocket as were the humbuckers but I could see the original owner had the bridge humbucker way out and even resorted to a JB humbucker, pretty hot, to help.

And I noticed right away that playing it felt very strange from my strats, two PRS's and LP. The body felt far away from my right hand fingers which were left "out is space" since I just don't have any extra length to compensate for that lol. I thought that only a LP pickguard would take care of that and mess up the looks as well so was not an option. Nothing else to tune or adjust to make that guitar fit me and regretfully sent it back. And the 12th fret thickness was 1.03" and just felt way too fat for me too (61/64" in the nominal spec) and wider than the spec by 2-3 mm too. It was also 1/3/4" at the nut but thicker there by only 1 mm. Not like my Paul's wide fat at all which while thicker than the wide thin PRS I have is still very comfortable for me. My lesson was always buy one you can play first, especially used. I took a chance on a really nice looking one and lost. I knew the risk.
Time to correct a few things I said above. It turns out my Paul's wide fat neck is under the nominal spec in width and depth while the guitar I returned is mostly over sized a bit, way different than the Paul's but only about 1 mm fatter than the spec. I realize now that the guitar I want probably doesn't exist, lol. Nominal or undersize neck, lower neck pocket cut like the example on the PRS site, nice even figuring and blue. The venn diagram for that says no way, lol. And I did think I could have adapted to the fatter neck but when I found that I was feeling awkward playing it I noticed the body was much further away from the strings where my picking hand fingers would sometimes rest while playing...sort of lost my anchor. So that and neck made me feel it was not going to be easy for me to play. And I only had 2 days to decide on returning it. Had the seller given me 1-2 weeks maybe I would have adapted...who knows? At any rate here are the dimensions I've now compiled that tell me I'm lucky with my Paul's guitar unsized neck and that I might never find a HB I like. The other problem is that there are virtually zero HB Piezo's to even try out in San Diego, lol! Oh I forgot I can't really post an image here easily, lol, have to find an outside host for that so nevermind about the data!
 
Time to correct a few things I said above. It turns out my Paul's wide fat neck is under the nominal spec in width and depth while the guitar I returned is mostly over sized a bit, way different than the Paul's but only about 1 mm fatter than the spec. I realize now that the guitar I want probably doesn't exist, lol. Nominal or undersize neck, lower neck pocket cut like the example on the PRS site, nice even figuring and blue. The venn diagram for that says no way, lol. And I did think I could have adapted to the fatter neck but when I found that I was feeling awkward playing it I noticed the body was much further away from the strings where my picking hand fingers would sometimes rest while playing...sort of lost my anchor. So that and neck made me feel it was not going to be easy for me to play. And I only had 2 days to decide on returning it. Had the seller given me 1-2 weeks maybe I would have adapted...who knows? At any rate here are the dimensions I've now compiled that tell me I'm lucky with my Paul's guitar unsized neck and that I might never find a HB I like. The other problem is that there are virtually zero HB Piezo's to even try out in San Diego, lol! Oh I forgot I can't really post an image here easily, lol, have to find an outside host for that so nevermind about the data!
Have you tried Shopping Online - most have a decent window for returns and often will have Photo's and/or can give you its actual dimensions if you ask BEFORE buying. As it's also not a 'Limited Edition' model or Colour and remains in their production line, I'm sure you could easily find the one you want. The Picture does look like it has a similar neck pocket join, although the angle, lighting and colour makes it less obvious to me.

Most reputable online stores can be very accommodating to help sell you one of their products and 'not' have to deal with a 'return'! They'll also likely have or will provide pictures and any specs, details you may want....
 
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