D
Deleted member 2284
Guest
So I have had an S2 single cut here with me for a day and a half, and I thought I would relate my experiences with it.
Likes:
- Really, really good setup from the factory (or dealer?). Low action with minimal buzz (and I’m pretty heavy handed). Well intonated.
- Very beautiful back (although pretty plain in the transparent red, the simple grain shows beautifully)
- Joints between the three pieces of the neck almost invisible - can only spot the one near the headstock, and then only in the right light. No problem here
- Great belly cut
- Fret ends were immaculate; really, really great job here.
- Rosewood fretboard pretty flat-looking, but with some very cool lighter striping for some of the length (although only visible in the right light up close)
Now some dislikes…
- The nut is very noticeably of lesser width than the neck and fretboard - it looks and feels really mismatched.
- Noticeable (up close) milling track on the bridge’s base “plate” where it meets the raised part where the strings rest. Minor niggle, not very noticeable unless the lighting is just so..
- Very crude milling on the underside of the stoptail bridge (you’d never see it when it is sitting on the guitar of course, but it actually did kind of bother me.
- Studs for the bridge can rock back and forth quite a bit, maybe a millimeter or so. I Don’t know if this is normal? if it is, then this is obviously not an issue whatsoever.
- Some of the edges of the bridge are very sharp, like the break point of the strings (not that I cut myself playing or anything).
- Pretty obvious joint between neck and body (recess all around the joint at the cutout)
- Switch did seem to not switch a time or two. This may have been my imagination, and I didn’t investigate further, so I’m definitely willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
- Quite a bit of difference between force needed to turn the tuners (maybe could be fixed with a screw driver, didn’t try - so may be a non-issue)
- Finish flaw near one of the tuners (delimitation) on the back of headstock
- Bird inlays look very flat, lifeless and white - dots would probably look much better
- Lacquer on sides of fretboard (ie on the rosewood, not just the mahogany)
Some dislikes that are probably due to dealer’s messing with strings and setup rather than something that happened in the factory:
- All the string locking screws of the tuners were VERY tightly screwed in. One of them actually had had the black plating stripped from the tip, and the wire was bent totally out of shape so I had to yank on it quite hard to get it out of the tuner.
- One of the bridge studs had cut a groove into the bridge itself. Looks like somebody didn’t bother to slacken the strings before adjusting bridge height. Still, maybe the stud has a burr from the milling - haven’t checked it. If so, this obviously is not a mistake during setup.
Neither like nor dislike, just FYI (as it’s not always clear from pictures):
- Cavity plates not recessed, but screwed onto top of body
Phew… I think that’s about all I can come up with here.
So what is the conclusion here?
Well. A lot of these things I can accept if the tone is right. For me, unfortunately, it isn’t. Let me be the first to say that tone is subjective, so (like many other things here), this is merely my personal opinion.
I was a bit surprised at how muddy and kind of flat the bottom strings are TO MY EARS. I’ve played my Brent Mason almost exclusively for a long while, and the difference is really big. The difference to my LP Studio is, unsurprisingly, smaller - but definitely still there. And there seems to be a certain general tone to it that is very forward and kind of abrades my senses. This might be another person’s idea of greatness, so (as always) use your own ears and judge for yourself. For me, I just plain didn’t like the tone. Note that this is based on playing on the bridge pickup almost exclusively. I DID adjust the pickup height, but the general character of the tone is still there, and not to my personal liking. For the sake of full disclosure, I played through my Kemper using headphones. No, headphones don’t tell the whole story, but I need a tone I can like through headphones. I used many different profiles; marshals, vox’s fenders, and lots others. Mesa boogies seemed the best. For some profiles, the tone was perfectly fine, but I don’t want to be limited in this respect (and the limiting factor, yet again, might be my personal taste).
The conclusion (90 % based on tone, 10% based on the other stuff I mentioned) is that the S2 singlecut is not for me, so it is going back to the dealer. Hopefully somebody else will pick it up and find that it’s everything they’ve been looking for.
I should also mention that I obviously don’t know how much of this is tied to the series, the model or this particular specimen. I love my Brent Mason to death (the guitar, not the guy), so it’s definitely not a brand thing
I also don’t intend to slam either PRS, the series or the model in any way. But I have to buy used or from abroad when I want to get anything else than the SE series, and I thought that maybe this might help people in the same situation if they are on the fence about this model.
Keep in mind that pickups can be changed, but I don’t want to go that route in the hopes that this will yield the perfect solution.
If you like the tone and can live with the POTENTIAL issues, then by all means go for it. In any case, try one out in person if you get the chance. It might just be for you.
For me, it wasn’t
I would love to hear from other S2 owners (of which I am still one for a day or more), and hear if you can recognize any of this? That would offer some nice balance to this post, I think.
Likes:
- Really, really good setup from the factory (or dealer?). Low action with minimal buzz (and I’m pretty heavy handed). Well intonated.
- Very beautiful back (although pretty plain in the transparent red, the simple grain shows beautifully)
- Joints between the three pieces of the neck almost invisible - can only spot the one near the headstock, and then only in the right light. No problem here
- Great belly cut
- Fret ends were immaculate; really, really great job here.
- Rosewood fretboard pretty flat-looking, but with some very cool lighter striping for some of the length (although only visible in the right light up close)
Now some dislikes…
- The nut is very noticeably of lesser width than the neck and fretboard - it looks and feels really mismatched.
- Noticeable (up close) milling track on the bridge’s base “plate” where it meets the raised part where the strings rest. Minor niggle, not very noticeable unless the lighting is just so..
- Very crude milling on the underside of the stoptail bridge (you’d never see it when it is sitting on the guitar of course, but it actually did kind of bother me.
- Studs for the bridge can rock back and forth quite a bit, maybe a millimeter or so. I Don’t know if this is normal? if it is, then this is obviously not an issue whatsoever.
- Some of the edges of the bridge are very sharp, like the break point of the strings (not that I cut myself playing or anything).
- Pretty obvious joint between neck and body (recess all around the joint at the cutout)
- Switch did seem to not switch a time or two. This may have been my imagination, and I didn’t investigate further, so I’m definitely willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
- Quite a bit of difference between force needed to turn the tuners (maybe could be fixed with a screw driver, didn’t try - so may be a non-issue)
- Finish flaw near one of the tuners (delimitation) on the back of headstock
- Bird inlays look very flat, lifeless and white - dots would probably look much better
- Lacquer on sides of fretboard (ie on the rosewood, not just the mahogany)
Some dislikes that are probably due to dealer’s messing with strings and setup rather than something that happened in the factory:
- All the string locking screws of the tuners were VERY tightly screwed in. One of them actually had had the black plating stripped from the tip, and the wire was bent totally out of shape so I had to yank on it quite hard to get it out of the tuner.
- One of the bridge studs had cut a groove into the bridge itself. Looks like somebody didn’t bother to slacken the strings before adjusting bridge height. Still, maybe the stud has a burr from the milling - haven’t checked it. If so, this obviously is not a mistake during setup.
Neither like nor dislike, just FYI (as it’s not always clear from pictures):
- Cavity plates not recessed, but screwed onto top of body
Phew… I think that’s about all I can come up with here.
So what is the conclusion here?
Well. A lot of these things I can accept if the tone is right. For me, unfortunately, it isn’t. Let me be the first to say that tone is subjective, so (like many other things here), this is merely my personal opinion.
I was a bit surprised at how muddy and kind of flat the bottom strings are TO MY EARS. I’ve played my Brent Mason almost exclusively for a long while, and the difference is really big. The difference to my LP Studio is, unsurprisingly, smaller - but definitely still there. And there seems to be a certain general tone to it that is very forward and kind of abrades my senses. This might be another person’s idea of greatness, so (as always) use your own ears and judge for yourself. For me, I just plain didn’t like the tone. Note that this is based on playing on the bridge pickup almost exclusively. I DID adjust the pickup height, but the general character of the tone is still there, and not to my personal liking. For the sake of full disclosure, I played through my Kemper using headphones. No, headphones don’t tell the whole story, but I need a tone I can like through headphones. I used many different profiles; marshals, vox’s fenders, and lots others. Mesa boogies seemed the best. For some profiles, the tone was perfectly fine, but I don’t want to be limited in this respect (and the limiting factor, yet again, might be my personal taste).
The conclusion (90 % based on tone, 10% based on the other stuff I mentioned) is that the S2 singlecut is not for me, so it is going back to the dealer. Hopefully somebody else will pick it up and find that it’s everything they’ve been looking for.
I should also mention that I obviously don’t know how much of this is tied to the series, the model or this particular specimen. I love my Brent Mason to death (the guitar, not the guy), so it’s definitely not a brand thing
I also don’t intend to slam either PRS, the series or the model in any way. But I have to buy used or from abroad when I want to get anything else than the SE series, and I thought that maybe this might help people in the same situation if they are on the fence about this model.
Keep in mind that pickups can be changed, but I don’t want to go that route in the hopes that this will yield the perfect solution.
If you like the tone and can live with the POTENTIAL issues, then by all means go for it. In any case, try one out in person if you get the chance. It might just be for you.
For me, it wasn’t
I would love to hear from other S2 owners (of which I am still one for a day or more), and hear if you can recognize any of this? That would offer some nice balance to this post, I think.
