I went to the factory for my first custom build in July 2019. I wasn't planning to initially but the idea quickly grew to get the 'whole experience' package for the first build. I'm glad I did despite the added travel expense and not particularly enjoyable flight (flying from west coast isn't a bit long for such a short trip).
My specs were pretty locked down before we flew there. I knew what I wanted (curly maple neck, curly maple top, ash back, bats inlays) and wouldn't have deviated from that. I wanted to stay below a certain price point. Also got to meet Paul which was great.
If you go there without being dead set on specific woods I imagine the experience to be even better as you can just marvel at the wood section and pick what jumps at you. You need to have an open ended budget for that though; I'll use that mindset if I ever go to the Vault again in the future.
There are things you see in person you would easily miss if you don't ask when doing a virtual vault call (haven't done those yet but I'm due for 3 of them...):
- you may want to look at the sides of the top blanks to see whether the figuring is dying off down below the surface, as that's what you'll get once the top is carved.
- it's very very hard to get an idea of the chatoyance, even on a video call, compared to being in person and holding the blanks at different light orientations.
- I was already amazed by some of the early tops we looked at and the dealer was like 'that's more of an Artist grade top'
, it was great to have a dealer familiar with the process.
On the downside I went there wanting a specific wide curl reversed chevron orientation top and there really was only one that was satisfactory (but still not wide enough curls). I ended up not picking that one because the one with horizontal curls just was far more chatoyant. In this case waiting for PRS to find a top like I imagined and doing a virtual visit would have been great too; it's just a case of setting the expectations right - there are lots of fantastic woods in there but if you are too specific on what you want you may feel disappointed if you don't find exactly what you envisioned.
Overall though, fantastic experience.
Having said that I ordered 2 during lockdowns. I trust PRS and the dealers I used to pre-select the figuring I want before dong the virtual vault visit (still waiting for that); we'll see how that goes.
