SC245 Wood Library - Ice Blue Metallic

[feelthaflo]

I had been on the hunt for an LP-style guitar for years, when I came across this little beauty:
http://briansguitars.com/product/paul-reed-smith-wood-library-sc245-standard-brians-limited-6

No flashy top, no messing around - I was immediately drawn to the understated beauty and class that exudes from this instrument, as well as the more unique features:
- Brazilian rosewood fingerboard adds a bit of natural wood figuring and 'specialness'
- Hand-selected 2-tone bird inlays - again, a touch of bling but not too much
- Hybrid hardware - same as above
- Covered 59/09s - haven't seen these on anything else that I can recall

So, I spent a couple months looking at this guitar, and many others, but I always kept coming back to this one in particular. "Sure it looks great in pictures," I thought, "but it couldn't possibly play or sound as well as my other guitars." Well, Brian had a good sale going for Black Friday, so I jumped at the chance to get my hands on her. The short story is - I was wrong - she plays and sounds just as good if not better than anything I've ever played. There are a couple of quirky issues that I'd like to discuss with you all though:
- Those strap buttons - great concept, but I know I'm not alone when I say that they're almost completely unusable. I had to swap them out for Dunlop Straploks immediately.
- I play a single-ended class A tube amp, and - holy cow what is all that noise going on??? At first I thought it must be a ground issue, but then I popped off the cavity cover and discovered that there appears to be zero shielding inside. This seems like a pretty big oversight for a guitar in this price range - is the lack of cavity shielding normal for PRS Core instruments?
- 33nf caps? That's interesting...doesn't seem to be making her sound particularly dark though - if anything this is probably helping to tame some brightness (which I wouldn't really expect to have in such a high-mass instrument, especially with an all-mahogany body).

 

[vchizzle]

1) Congrats!
2) Brazzy boards rule!
3) PRS strap buttons are nice and all, but strap locks go on any guitar that I play out.
4) The paint inside the cavity is shielding paint.
5) I don't get into the specifics of caps/values/etc unless I'm trying to make a specific change. I honestly don't even look at them unless that occurs...which is funny because I swap pickups to my faves rather often.

Side note, I was really close to pulling the trigger on the pearl white one...the black pearl got me a little excited too.

 

[Steve B]

Gorgeous blue finish on that guitar! Love it!!!

steve

 

[feelthaflo]

4) The paint inside the cavity is shielding paint.

The paint inside the cavity is the same Ice Blue Metallic that covers the rest of the instrument...is this conductive? Also, the underside of the cavity cover is not covered with a conductor, which is necessary for creating the full Faraday cage around the electronics. Just curious to find out whether there's a good reason for the lack of shielding, and/or if this is the standard practice for PRS (or perhaps if things are just done a unique and different way).

 

[butterfly]

Congrats! Those mahogny SC's sound huge. One of my favorite PRS recipes.

 

[toothace]

I've seen this one up close...it's a beauty. Congrats!

 

[goof1073]

Congrats...nice to see that one getting a good home.

 

[AP515]

The paint inside the cavity is the same Ice Blue Metallic that covers the rest of the instrument...is this conductive? Also, the underside of the cavity cover is not covered with a conductor, which is necessary for creating the full Faraday cage around the electronics. Just curious to find out whether there's a good reason for the lack of shielding, and/or if this is the standard practice for PRS (or perhaps if things are just done a unique and different way).

I don't know the reasons why, but PRS stopped coating the cavity a few years back. I guess they decided they didn't need it. As for the covers, they've never had any coating on them. The SE's do but the USA made do not.

 

[markie]

Very cool :rock:

 

[Whitecat]

Freaking beautiful, I absolutely love that colour (and have a Mira 245 in it!) - but is the 'Wood Library' aspect of it slightly overkill because of the all-opaque finish? Is it just the fingerboard that makes it a WL run in this case?

 

[László]

In terms of the cavity what you have is standard for PRS, even on Private Stock models. However, my former SC245, SC58, and current McCarty Singlecut were/are absolutely not noisy at all. In fact, quite the opposite. They're very quiet guitars. So you might want to check with your dealer about that!

Beautiful guitar, in any case.