JTroska
New Member
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2015
- Messages
- 59
Long story short: It's the most comfortable guitar I've ever played. It looks decent. It sounds great. It's hard to put down and do what I'm supposed to be doing. What else does anybody need from a guitar?
I've had a thing for hollow guitars for a while but hated the ergonomics and dysfunctional Gibson-style headstock most copy. When I saw PRS made a semi hollow single cut, I felt like Paul custom made me my dream guitar. You can read my original trying of the guitars here http://prsguitars.com/forum/showthr...-Line&highlight=finally+tried+s2+line+jtroska .
Well I kept thinking about that one guitar and started to feel I'd be sorry if somebody else bought it, so I eventually made it mine. I've had it for a month or so now and played it with the band 3 or 4 times. I wanted to run it through its paces before posting.
I own a Core SC250, an SE Semi Hollow Soap Bar, and now an S2 Semi Hollow Singlecut. I really feel like the S2 is my line. If I lost all my guitars in a fire, I would definitely come back to the S2 line for more. That's not to say it's better than my Core. It's just that I'm past the stage of my life where I want to spend that kind of money on a guitar. I just want a well-made guitar I can rock the $h!t out of without worrying too much. The S2 is exactly that.
Looks: Like I said in my previous thread, the tops in this line vary a lot. I like this one but I've seen some I didn't like. If you're particular about your tops, you probably don't want to buy from this line site unseen. It certainly doesn't gleam like the Core, but it has an understated elegance I like. The Blue Crab Smokeburst finish looks grayish greenish blue in dim lighting and gets more greenish in brighter outdoor lighting. Hard to photograph because it usually looks more green than blue in photos. But the above pic in indoor light looks about right.
Sound: My band is doing mostly girl power-pop covers. Blondie to Pat Benatar to No Doubt to Katy Perry and such.
The S2 Semi Hollow and solid Core SC250 sound completely different both unplugged and plugged. I'd say unplugged, the semi hollow is a little louder in the midrange and responds to dynamic nuance a little more. The solid SC250 sounds more scooped and feels more dynamically compressed. The semi hollow isn't acoustically loud but satisfying enough to play unplugged alone in my room. More so than the solid body.
It's hard to say how much the hollow chambers affect the plugged in sound because each guitar has vastly different pickups. The solid SC250 has a hot ceramic bridge pickup. The semi hollow S2 has vintage output alnico pickups. The solid SC250 certainly has more 'umph' in the lows. At first, the S2 #7 bridge pickup seemed anemic compared to the hot beefy SC250 pickup I was used to. But live recording playback shows the S2 sounds wonderful in a mix. I liken it to playing with an amp on and off the floor. Playing with the amp coupled to the floor FEELS great. But lifting it SOUNDS better in a mix. The S2 #7 bridge pickup SOUNDS a lot better than it seemed to FEEL at first. But I had to get used to the feel and tweak my pedalboard a bit. Now I absolutely love it.
I'm not completely in love with the neck pickup yet but it's perfectly serviceable. I think I just have to tweak more.
Playability: Love it. I upped the string gauge to .011-.049 and set it up to the exact specifications on the PRS Guitars web site. The S2 Semi Hollow has the Pattern Regular neck. The Core SC250 has the Wide/Fat neck. Difference is negligible. I maybe prefer the Wide/Fat a teeny bit for chords because it gives me more room for my fingers. The Pattern Regular requires I be a teeny bit more accurate. But not a big deal. Just point my fingers more straight. Different neck carves but quality seems equivalent.
Honestly, at this point the S2 plays better than my Core but that's just because I've played my Core into the ground and probably need a fret job. The Core has been a fantastically reliable guitar. Got it in 2008 and set it up once. Always held the setup and always stayed in tune. Time will tell if the S2 is that good.
The light weight and beveled edges of the S2 Semi Hollow make it my most comfortable guitar. I really never want to put it down.
Gripes: Soft Case. Putting a guitar of this caliber in a soft case cheapens the experience. The soft case puts pressure on the tuning pegs and renders the guitar out of tune every time it's taken out. Definitely not what the PRS experience is all about. Fortunately, I had an empty SKB case laying around. Now it never goes out of tune and it's always ready to go.
I've had a thing for hollow guitars for a while but hated the ergonomics and dysfunctional Gibson-style headstock most copy. When I saw PRS made a semi hollow single cut, I felt like Paul custom made me my dream guitar. You can read my original trying of the guitars here http://prsguitars.com/forum/showthr...-Line&highlight=finally+tried+s2+line+jtroska .
Well I kept thinking about that one guitar and started to feel I'd be sorry if somebody else bought it, so I eventually made it mine. I've had it for a month or so now and played it with the band 3 or 4 times. I wanted to run it through its paces before posting.
I own a Core SC250, an SE Semi Hollow Soap Bar, and now an S2 Semi Hollow Singlecut. I really feel like the S2 is my line. If I lost all my guitars in a fire, I would definitely come back to the S2 line for more. That's not to say it's better than my Core. It's just that I'm past the stage of my life where I want to spend that kind of money on a guitar. I just want a well-made guitar I can rock the $h!t out of without worrying too much. The S2 is exactly that.
Looks: Like I said in my previous thread, the tops in this line vary a lot. I like this one but I've seen some I didn't like. If you're particular about your tops, you probably don't want to buy from this line site unseen. It certainly doesn't gleam like the Core, but it has an understated elegance I like. The Blue Crab Smokeburst finish looks grayish greenish blue in dim lighting and gets more greenish in brighter outdoor lighting. Hard to photograph because it usually looks more green than blue in photos. But the above pic in indoor light looks about right.
Sound: My band is doing mostly girl power-pop covers. Blondie to Pat Benatar to No Doubt to Katy Perry and such.
The S2 Semi Hollow and solid Core SC250 sound completely different both unplugged and plugged. I'd say unplugged, the semi hollow is a little louder in the midrange and responds to dynamic nuance a little more. The solid SC250 sounds more scooped and feels more dynamically compressed. The semi hollow isn't acoustically loud but satisfying enough to play unplugged alone in my room. More so than the solid body.
It's hard to say how much the hollow chambers affect the plugged in sound because each guitar has vastly different pickups. The solid SC250 has a hot ceramic bridge pickup. The semi hollow S2 has vintage output alnico pickups. The solid SC250 certainly has more 'umph' in the lows. At first, the S2 #7 bridge pickup seemed anemic compared to the hot beefy SC250 pickup I was used to. But live recording playback shows the S2 sounds wonderful in a mix. I liken it to playing with an amp on and off the floor. Playing with the amp coupled to the floor FEELS great. But lifting it SOUNDS better in a mix. The S2 #7 bridge pickup SOUNDS a lot better than it seemed to FEEL at first. But I had to get used to the feel and tweak my pedalboard a bit. Now I absolutely love it.
I'm not completely in love with the neck pickup yet but it's perfectly serviceable. I think I just have to tweak more.
Playability: Love it. I upped the string gauge to .011-.049 and set it up to the exact specifications on the PRS Guitars web site. The S2 Semi Hollow has the Pattern Regular neck. The Core SC250 has the Wide/Fat neck. Difference is negligible. I maybe prefer the Wide/Fat a teeny bit for chords because it gives me more room for my fingers. The Pattern Regular requires I be a teeny bit more accurate. But not a big deal. Just point my fingers more straight. Different neck carves but quality seems equivalent.
Honestly, at this point the S2 plays better than my Core but that's just because I've played my Core into the ground and probably need a fret job. The Core has been a fantastically reliable guitar. Got it in 2008 and set it up once. Always held the setup and always stayed in tune. Time will tell if the S2 is that good.
The light weight and beveled edges of the S2 Semi Hollow make it my most comfortable guitar. I really never want to put it down.
Gripes: Soft Case. Putting a guitar of this caliber in a soft case cheapens the experience. The soft case puts pressure on the tuning pegs and renders the guitar out of tune every time it's taken out. Definitely not what the PRS experience is all about. Fortunately, I had an empty SKB case laying around. Now it never goes out of tune and it's always ready to go.
