See Subject. Some quick thoughts:
* The SE Studio Standard's volume taper is smooth. They fixed the biggest thing that irritated me about the SE NF3, where the volume dropped off a cliff lower than 8.
* The S2 Studio's neck narrowfield is livelier than the SSH's neck humbucker. A little more dynamic to my ear. Both sounded great clean though.
* I was surprised how well the SSH took gain. Some folks have commented that it might not be home-base for the guitar, but it sounded great to me.
* I wasn't sure how I felt about the core narrowfields with higher gain. They have an interesting character to them. The SE narrowfields sounded a little closer to a full-size humbucker in tonality when driven. I think the SE narrowfields are a little wider, so that might be why.
* No issues with strumming with either 3-pickup design. I was definitely hitting the center narrowfield on both models when picking, and it was worse with the SSH. Small adjustment to get back into the open area. I'm sure I could get used to it.
* I'd be happy to have either model.
* I went home and immediately played my Fiore and S2 Custom 24-08 to compare. It's a pretty amazing time for PRS players when every model sounds good and can hit all of the bases from a versatility standpoint. I didn't feel like the in-store experience was life-changing enough for me to trade-up. Back to the grind of slowly saving for the next guitar purchase with my monthly allowance. <sigh> budgets...
Caveat: I was using Boss Waza Air headphones, so everything was modeling based and direct to my ears. That definitely has an impact on how things sound, semi-hollow feedback, etc.
* The SE Studio Standard's volume taper is smooth. They fixed the biggest thing that irritated me about the SE NF3, where the volume dropped off a cliff lower than 8.
* The S2 Studio's neck narrowfield is livelier than the SSH's neck humbucker. A little more dynamic to my ear. Both sounded great clean though.
* I was surprised how well the SSH took gain. Some folks have commented that it might not be home-base for the guitar, but it sounded great to me.
* I wasn't sure how I felt about the core narrowfields with higher gain. They have an interesting character to them. The SE narrowfields sounded a little closer to a full-size humbucker in tonality when driven. I think the SE narrowfields are a little wider, so that might be why.
* No issues with strumming with either 3-pickup design. I was definitely hitting the center narrowfield on both models when picking, and it was worse with the SSH. Small adjustment to get back into the open area. I'm sure I could get used to it.
* I'd be happy to have either model.
* I went home and immediately played my Fiore and S2 Custom 24-08 to compare. It's a pretty amazing time for PRS players when every model sounds good and can hit all of the bases from a versatility standpoint. I didn't feel like the in-store experience was life-changing enough for me to trade-up. Back to the grind of slowly saving for the next guitar purchase with my monthly allowance. <sigh> budgets...
Caveat: I was using Boss Waza Air headphones, so everything was modeling based and direct to my ears. That definitely has an impact on how things sound, semi-hollow feedback, etc.
