PRS needs your input!

[Whitecat]

Best way to evaluate a guitar: Plug it straight into a good amp & play it.

Have you ever been to a trade show? The word "cacophony" doesn't even begin to describe what you have to put up with on the floor. A fair evaluation of these guitars would be virtually impossible.

 

[RedGuitars]

Have you ever been to a trade show? The word "cacophony" doesn't even begin to describe what you have to put up with on the floor. A fair evaluation of these guitars would be virtually impossible.

True enough. The Arlington TX guitar show has a 'loud' room and a 'quiet' room, but even the quiet room is anything but that...

The modeler/headphone setup is about as good as you can get in those venues/shows. I think they use the same type rig in the Gibson trailor.

 

[themike]

As an amp manufacturer I honestly find anything other than a set up using your amps to be kind of odd but thats my personal opinion.

 

[justmund]

+1 on the Kemper idea, definitely profile some PRS amps then put it in performance mode so all that's needed is a button press to go between rigs/performance slots. They could be in order of gain too, there's 5 slots so that's plenty of tonal options.

There's even bass amp profiles now for the GG demos

Just don't let people stick a USB drive into the Kemper and grab the profiles

Also on the thief factor, and iPad is a lot easier to grab and stick under a coat than a Kemper (yeah maybe I'm paranoid).

 

[vchizzle]

I went to Gian's this weekend and we profiled my Archon clean and high gain. We listened back and forth between the miced Archon tone and the profiles and it is REALLY d@mn close. This would be the closest route to get into the PRS amp realm. That said, maybe you could get in the ballpark with Positive Grid Bias? That would take some time to work up the presets though, where the Kemper is quick to do.

 

[C&M Music - Lafayette]

I think all the suggestions are well thought out and very insightful. I also know from the original post that time constraints for setup make live amp setups with isolation boxes not a good solution. That said, I think it is all being overthought. The pic shows six stations with pods, guitar stands, and headphones at each station. How can setting up six PRS 25 watt Archons with a slight headphones modification not be the best way to promote your PRS guitars and amps. Afterall, the 25 watt Archon is advertised as the perfect amp for home, stage, or studio. I hesitantly say PRS should be careful with not further considering the use of PRS products exclusively. As this could be interpeted as it is to much for PRS to set up, but not the customer. Just a thought that should be considered, do not beat me up over it. In essence, by providing this arrangement of your products you would be practicing what you preach ( the absolute sonic truth) and providing proprietary products ( the best there is by the way) the way they should be heard for the experimenting shopper. The shopper/customer who most likely will play the guitar through an amp and hopefully a PRS amp and not all this pod stuff. Afterall, the pod crap is not even PRS stuff. I feel my suggestion, in my opinion, is a best practice exercise of your advertisements of your products and their performance capabilities. Do not compromise that for convenience. Modify six 25 watt Archons with headphone jacks, put three of each on two dollys and wheel them into the setup area. The rest of the stuff has to be set up anyway and you will not need as many power strips, cables and power chords and boxes for all that POD stuff and call it a day.

 

[prs19]

What if the amp department took the guts off any of the PRS amps, mounted in a head type chassis, run through a Mesa cab clone, and a tuner of some kind. From the cab clone run to a small headphone amp. All of this could be mounted in a head chassis in such a way that you minimize the interaction needed by the person trying out the guitar (like hide the cab clone, headphone amp, and tuner body). On the front of the head type chassis the user would have access to all the knobs of the chosen amp, the tuner display, and a headphone volume knob. There could also be a "visual" sheet of amp presets based on the chosen PRS amp. This would allow PRS to "brand" the experience. Seems this would be cost effective too considering everything but the headphone amp, tuner, and cab clone could be made and controlled in-house.

i don't recall if the Joe Bonamassa pedal that recently came out has a load or not, but that could be another option in place of the cab clone.

 

[Proxmax]

kemper + headphone amp for more listeners