Made a little jaunt out of town to a PRS dealer last Saturday to get my hands on a few things I wanted to try out. I only had a few hours and my time was actually cut short due to the store closing an hour before what google told me. So keep in mind that my time on each thing wasn't very long.
SE Angelus Custom - I didn't notice if this one had the electronics or not and it doesn't show up on their website. But I wasn't looking for that, just the acoustic sound. Very full and balanced tone, I really liked this guitar quite a bit. I compared it to several high end Breedlove's that were within reach ranging from $1300-2000ish and to my ears, this entry level PRS sounded bigger and fuller than all of them. I like a big acoustic tone. The only that came close in terms of projection and fullness was a Breedlove jumbo type body style. Even that just sounded like it had a lot of low end though, not as full throughout the entire frequency range. Playability was great.
SE A10E - I briefly strummed 2 different ones, they were both similar. I was slightly disappointed in these, they had a smaller voice. Played very nice, smaller tone just didn't inspire me to want to play it.
Kingfisher - *Disclaimer* - I'm not a bass player. I own a cheaper F bass that's pretty nice though and plunk around on it. They had 2 KF's. The first 1 I grabbed, the action seemed pretty high and there was A LOT of relief in the neck. So went to grab the other. Action was better, still seemed to have quite a bit of relief in the neck but it was playable. I started out on a little Ashdown AAA - Vintage 12 combo. I messed around for awhile and noticed I wasn't hearing a lot of difference changing knob settings on the bass and thought, well that doesn't seem "very PRS" like. So I changed up to a Mesa Prodigy Four:88 thru a Mesa 6x10 - HOLY CRAP! Freaking awesome tone. Huge array of different sounds just between the basses volume knobs. Some of the middle combinations produced some really unique tones that were a lot of fun. I really had fun and got into coming up with some cool grooves, which is why I like messing around on bass to begin with. If I really played bass, I could see rocking that entire rig for sure. The neck on the KF feels a little bigger or thicker than I was used to, but some of that could be my little, girly guitar player hands too.
Definitely gonna look more into this bass.
Archon 25 - I've got the 100, so I was interested in how this would translate. It's definitely all Archon. Keep in mind, it doesn't quite have the gut punching low end of the 100 thru a 4x12, but it definitely sounds pretty big for a small package and does so at easily managed volumes. I had to EQ the amp quite different than the 100. 5881's and the Celestion 75 come in to play there I'm sure. I would've actually liked to see this amp with 6V6 tubes. The 5881's are not a bad thing at all, they actually give a more British vibe to be honest, which some may like even better than it's bigger brothers. Maybe it's just the speaker, those tubes shouldn't affect things that much, close to the same as 6L6?
NOS Paul's Finish McCarty - (w/5708's) This guitar has been there forever. They keep it in the humidified acoustic room. I've played it a bunch of times, sometimes it feels a little less smooth than others - likely to how high the humidity is. I always want to raise the pickups up as I think they're too low and I believe the guitar would be more responsive. Opposite of the basses, this fretboard felt ultra flat. Which I don't care for, I like a little relief to get under those bends. This guitar has the potential to be cool, I'd like to play it after some tweaks and see what it's like. Maybe it would actually sell then.
S2 Custom 22 Semi-Hollow - My time was extremely short on this guitar. This is when I was informed they were closing. I had about 5 minutes at best in and I was really just flipping thru the different pickup selections. Initial thoughts are that it was a really nice guitar and I actually got a better vibe than I did with the McCarty. Wish I would've had more time.
My intent was to try a few OD pedals in front of the Archon clean and some delays through the loop because I'm sort of looking for 1 of each. Well, I didn't get to that. I distracted by bigger, shiny things.
roud:
SE Angelus Custom - I didn't notice if this one had the electronics or not and it doesn't show up on their website. But I wasn't looking for that, just the acoustic sound. Very full and balanced tone, I really liked this guitar quite a bit. I compared it to several high end Breedlove's that were within reach ranging from $1300-2000ish and to my ears, this entry level PRS sounded bigger and fuller than all of them. I like a big acoustic tone. The only that came close in terms of projection and fullness was a Breedlove jumbo type body style. Even that just sounded like it had a lot of low end though, not as full throughout the entire frequency range. Playability was great.
SE A10E - I briefly strummed 2 different ones, they were both similar. I was slightly disappointed in these, they had a smaller voice. Played very nice, smaller tone just didn't inspire me to want to play it.
Kingfisher - *Disclaimer* - I'm not a bass player. I own a cheaper F bass that's pretty nice though and plunk around on it. They had 2 KF's. The first 1 I grabbed, the action seemed pretty high and there was A LOT of relief in the neck. So went to grab the other. Action was better, still seemed to have quite a bit of relief in the neck but it was playable. I started out on a little Ashdown AAA - Vintage 12 combo. I messed around for awhile and noticed I wasn't hearing a lot of difference changing knob settings on the bass and thought, well that doesn't seem "very PRS" like. So I changed up to a Mesa Prodigy Four:88 thru a Mesa 6x10 - HOLY CRAP! Freaking awesome tone. Huge array of different sounds just between the basses volume knobs. Some of the middle combinations produced some really unique tones that were a lot of fun. I really had fun and got into coming up with some cool grooves, which is why I like messing around on bass to begin with. If I really played bass, I could see rocking that entire rig for sure. The neck on the KF feels a little bigger or thicker than I was used to, but some of that could be my little, girly guitar player hands too.
Definitely gonna look more into this bass.Archon 25 - I've got the 100, so I was interested in how this would translate. It's definitely all Archon. Keep in mind, it doesn't quite have the gut punching low end of the 100 thru a 4x12, but it definitely sounds pretty big for a small package and does so at easily managed volumes. I had to EQ the amp quite different than the 100. 5881's and the Celestion 75 come in to play there I'm sure. I would've actually liked to see this amp with 6V6 tubes. The 5881's are not a bad thing at all, they actually give a more British vibe to be honest, which some may like even better than it's bigger brothers. Maybe it's just the speaker, those tubes shouldn't affect things that much, close to the same as 6L6?
NOS Paul's Finish McCarty - (w/5708's) This guitar has been there forever. They keep it in the humidified acoustic room. I've played it a bunch of times, sometimes it feels a little less smooth than others - likely to how high the humidity is. I always want to raise the pickups up as I think they're too low and I believe the guitar would be more responsive. Opposite of the basses, this fretboard felt ultra flat. Which I don't care for, I like a little relief to get under those bends. This guitar has the potential to be cool, I'd like to play it after some tweaks and see what it's like. Maybe it would actually sell then.
S2 Custom 22 Semi-Hollow - My time was extremely short on this guitar. This is when I was informed they were closing. I had about 5 minutes at best in and I was really just flipping thru the different pickup selections. Initial thoughts are that it was a really nice guitar and I actually got a better vibe than I did with the McCarty. Wish I would've had more time.
My intent was to try a few OD pedals in front of the Archon clean and some delays through the loop because I'm sort of looking for 1 of each. Well, I didn't get to that. I distracted by bigger, shiny things.
roud:
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