Silver Sky SE Quality Issues

CircuitSurfer

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Ok, maybe I'm just unlucky. Or maybe not. For what its worth, Vaughn Skow posted the following on his blog: A TECHS HONEST REVIEW OF A PRS SILVER SKY SE (I don't think I can post a link yet as this might be only my second post here).

My story:
I ordered a "brand new" Silver Sky SE from a Vancouver area shop through Reverb (enticed by a 15% Black Friday discount), sight unseen, literally, as the photos in the ad were stock photos and not of the actual guitar they sent me. I had high expectations given all the glowing reviews all over the interweb and the assurances I got from the staff who I had contacted before hand. I was told it had been in their shop for 2 months and was a "shop favorite". Suffice to say, I couldn't believe they had sent it to me in the condition it was in. The action was a mile high despite their being only a small amount of excess relief in the neck. The frets were covered in some kind of gungey crap requiring a vigorous fret polish and the strings were starting to develop corrosion. The neck profile seemed far too chunky based on the reviews I'd seen and I confirmed this later by comparing with a couple other SS SE's (one of which I now own, please read on). Each one of the tuners was very stiff to turn. It sounded fine, but ultimately I sent it back, I just couldn't live with the neck profile and the tuners were bugging me too. Something seemed really "off" about it, even the hang tags looked like they'd been through the war, with creases and tears in them.

Not long after I went to look at a second hand SS SE being sold locally. The neck profile was much better, but picking up where I left off with the first one, I discovered a problem where there was something weird with the 5 way switch. After going from position 2 to the bridge only position I had to give the switch a light tap back toward position 2 to get it settle in to connecting just the bridge pickup. Without doing that I got some version of bridge and middle together, but with a slightly different tone then position 2 proper. I wasn't terribly worried about that so I went ahead and bought it. When I got it home I discovered another problem. The high E string sounded muted and dull compared to the other strings. The B string also sounded less than ideal but better than the high E. The problem seemed worse on the bridge pickup and less noticeable on the middle pu and least so on the neck pu. I wondered if the strings might have something to do with it so I decided to change them (and I prefer 009's anyway). Lo and behold, when I took the strings off the nut fell clean off! There was a blob of glue stuck to the wood in the nut slot that never ended up adhering to the nut itself. What's more, I would have expected the glue to cover the entire but slot, but that wasn't the case. I got my tech to fix up the nut for me (I generally don't do nuts). Anyway, the new strings and the nut repair did nothing to fix the muted sounding string issue. I was convinced it could be corrected somehow as there is no problem with string balance when played acoustically. Tonight I went under the hood for the first time. The first thing I noticed was that one of the pieces of rubber tubing used on the pickup adjustment screws had come off and was wedged in the pickup selector switch. As it turned out, it had nothing to do with the weird behavior of the switch. As in Vaughn Skow's review, I also noticed the clip attached to the pick guard, but none of the wires were secured in it. Whatever, that was of no import, I wanted to get to the bottom of why the high E string (especially) was so muted sounding. I removed the bridge pickup and installed a Seymour Duncan single coil I had laying around. When I put everything back together and restrung I discovered that there is no issue at all with the string balance on the Duncan. So I can only assume that the issue is related to the SS SE pickups alone. The bobbins on the pickups appear to be fiber and my understanding is that it is not advisable to try to adjust the height of or replace the magnets in this type of pickup construction. At this point I'm wondering if I'm going to have shell out more dough and just replace the pickups. I'd love to hear any opinions on this, and on my experience with the SS SE model in general.
 
Sound like this person needs to find a better place to buy guitars.
A shop second and a used instrument were likely the issue here.
A new instrument from a good dealer or a used instrument from a trusted seller would likely have a better outcome.
 
Sound like this person needs to find a better place to buy guitars.
A shop second and a used instrument were likely the issue here.
A new instrument from a good dealer or a used instrument from a trusted seller would likely have a better outcome.
And maybe Higginbotham needs to spend more time in the Indonesia plant shoring up the quality control that he talks up in the promo videos.
 
I dunno, I got mine from a small dealer, and have had no problems with it. Plenty of other folks here have one, and I don’t recall any of them voicing concerns.
I received mine from the first batch, new one n the box and had no issues as described. A shop that sells online with stock photos and not the used guitar is questionable.

Sorry you're having that experience it is not the norm for the SE SS.

Also, it doesn't matter for the issues you are describing; what color were the ones you picked up?
 
I received mine from the first batch, new one n the box and had no issues as described. A shop that sells online with stock photos and not the used guitar is questionable.

Sorry you're having that experience it is not the norm for the SE SS.

Also, it doesn't matter for the issues you are describing; what color were the ones you picked up?
Luck of the draw I guess.

The first one was green, the one I have now is stone blue (which I prefer).
 
Certainly some variations. I highly suggest for SS SEs playing them first hand. I had to exchange one because the frets were not properly leveled and the I deemed the action necessary to correct it too high for my liking. I did have a bridge pickup go dead on me too. But again I had spare strat parts so it didn’t bother me. When I sat in a shop and tried 3 different ones there was a clear better feel to one for me. Something I usually don’t find much with other PRS models
 
It is also a sub 1k strat like guitar. I feel like it’s expected to need some tweaking to your preference. Far better than strats I’ve tried in the same price range. Hell I’ve received over $2k strats that needed more work.
 
It is also a sub 1k strat like guitar. I feel like it’s expected to need some tweaking to your preference. Far better than strats I’ve tried in the same price range. Hell I’ve received over $2k strats that needed more work.
Uh huh, I've got no issues with the general sound and feel of the one I have now. The frets feel real smooth, neck profile is nice, etc. etc. I haven't played any of the newer MIM Fenders but this seems better for the dough than what I remember of the MIM Strats I've tried some years ago.
Although, I haven't tried the whammy on these yet. Typically on a Strat I like it floating just a hair, just enough that I can wiggle it in both directions. I thought with the SS SE I might leave it decked as apparently that was an intentional design choice for better string energy transfer to the body, if I remember correctly.
 
And maybe Higginbotham needs to spend more time in the Indonesia plant shoring up the quality control that he talks up in the promo videos.
As toothace said, "I think the key words here are "shop favorite" and " second hand"..." Neither of those issues have anything to do with Indonesian QC. The "Shop favorite" was out on the floor, and every kid that came in tried it out. The second guitar was secondhand, so who knows how it was treated. I bought a used CU24 that looks like it got dragged across uneven pavement, and the previous owner had decked the trem in an unorthodox manner (from what I was told). Had nothing to do with PRS QC.
 
As toothace said, "I think the key words here are "shop favorite" and " second hand"..." Neither of those issues have anything to do with Indonesian QC. The "Shop favorite" was out on the floor, and every kid that came in tried it out. The second guitar was secondhand, so who knows how it was treated. I bought a used CU24 that looks like it got dragged across uneven pavement, and the previous owner had decked the trem in an unorthodox manner (from what I was told). Had nothing to do with PRS QC.
Except you are cherry picking and ignoring the part about stiff tuners, overly large neck profile, wonky selector switch, suspect pickups (in both my case andBroseth's above), finding loose screws (in Skow's case) and broken/missing pu adjustment spring (in my case) in the cavity. Nothing to do with second hand, these guitars were not more than a few months old.
 
I don't personally own one (SS SE), so anything I say is observing other's guitars and experiences. I recently saw an SE Silver Sky bridge that showed a lot of corrosion on it. I was surprised. Not that a bridge is corroded, as that can happen with any guitar and someone with that sort of sweat issues, but that it was already so severely corroded in such a short period. It caught my eye because I had read others commenting on that particular point (and catching a bit of flack for perceived slagging on the guitars).

The thing, for me anyway, is that these are substantially sub-$1k instruments and I simply don't expect them to be comparable in every way to the Silver Skys costing three times as much. I do expect them to have less expensive parts. I do expect their fit and finish to be less expertly executed. That many of them arrive functionally perfect and play great is a complement to Cort and PRS. That some don't is not a shock to me at this price point today. The dealer should make it right, but it's nothing unusual in my experience. I think they are a bargain at the price, but if I'm expecting top of the line performance, I should be buying the US Silver Sky.

I have experienced none of the reported SE issues on my "core" Silver Sky. This is pretty much as expected. This is just my opinion, based on my buying preferences. Don't let it bother you. You can laugh because I spent so much money on cores, and your SE or S2 is killing it for you.
 
Except you are cherry picking and ignoring the part about stiff tuners, overly large neck profile, wonky selector switch, suspect pickups (in both my case andBroseth's above), finding loose screws (in Skow's case) and broken/missing pu adjustment spring (in my case) in the cavity. Nothing to do with second hand, these guitars were not more than a few months old.
Were these problems on both of them? Sorry, I can't see Vaughan Skow's article in your post. Now I know that it sucks when the one you bought has issues, but neither one was new out of the box. Even if it was, you had one, Skow had one, maybe some other guys. Compare that to the thousands of this model that were sold over the past year. That's way less than 1% of those sold having issues. I'd say that it's practically impossible to catch everything, especially with a model as popular as this.
 
Were these problems on both of them? Sorry, I can't see Vaughan Skow's article in your post. Now I know that it sucks when the one you bought has issues, but neither one was new out of the box. Even if it was, you had one, Skow had one, maybe some other guys. Compare that to the thousands of this model that were sold over the past year. That's way less than 1% of those sold having issues. I'd say that it's practically impossible to catch everything, especially with a model as popular as this.
I described quite specifically my experience with two of them and the title of Vaughn's blog post in my OP. Google it if you're interested, apparently I have to have at least 3 posts before I can include links.

I acknowledged that maybe it was just a fluke that I had issues with two in a row. But there's no way you or I can make that determination either way based on the evidence at hand. It's pure speculation.

Some are saying that we shouldn't be fussy about a sub $1K PRS. However, they claim in their factory tour video that they are just as interested in QC in Indonesia as they are in Maryland. I'm suggesting that maybe they have some work to do to live up to that claim.

You had a second hand guitar that look like it had been dragged across uneven pavement. Apples and oranges comparison.
 
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Some are saying that we shouldn't be fussy about a sub $1K PRS. However, they claim in their factory tour video that they are just as interested in QC in Indonesia as they are in Maryland. I'm suggesting that maybe they have some work to do to live up to that claim.
In the event this was referring to my earlier post, I'll point out that I am not saying that a sub-$1000 guitar should be a junk-fest. I specifically mean that a person shouldn't expect a $800 guitar from a maker to be of the same quality (materials or construction) as a $2800 guitar from that same manufacturer. That's unrealistic. Everything extending to a guitar, QC included, is going to be higher at 3 times the cost of the finished product.

I do agree that the videos put out by PRS could easily give the impression that there's no difference in the materials, construction, finish work, or QC of guitars at all price points. No offense intended to anyone, truly, but I think it naive of anyone to take the banter to mean that. Yes, they are trying to convey that all of the guitars get their due before heading out the door. That leaves it to the buyer to be realistic about what that "due" might actually consist of before buying.

Personally, I don't buy anything but core guitars and CAD amps. I like knowing what I'm getting. I've never been disappointed. If I were to buy a SE or S2, I'm sure I'd be pleasantly surprised. Not because they'd be as good or better than my other PRS instruments and amps, but because at this price point my expectations would be much lower. Not low, just lower. You do, I find after years and years of purchasing at the lowest personal levels to the 8 figure professional level, get what you pay for.
 
I acknowledged that maybe it was just a fluke that I had issues with two in a row. But there's no way you or I can make that determination either way based on the evidence at hand. It's pure speculation.
When I take all of the snark out of your post, this is what’s left. And you’re right - it’s pure SPECULATION.
 
Earlier this month, I bought a new SE SS from a local high-end dealer. When I went to change the strings, the nut fell off. It didn't seem to be glued on at all. Today, I pulled the cord out of the jack, and the jack fell inside. I had to remove the jack plate to fish it out. I've had other SE's with no problems, so I wasn't expecting this. "C'mon, man."
 
I too have experienced a QC issue with my SS SE. Purchased from an online store that provides a 55 point inspection. When received it had fret sprout. The weather was fine during the in-transit times so that didn't cause it. The sprout is not so bad that it causes any pain but enough that I'm extremely disappointed with this guitar. I would agree that there are QC issues with some of the SS SE's. I have Squire Strats whose fret work blows this SS SE away, and at 1/3 the price.

I also blame the retailer for allowing this guitar to be shipped in the first place.

I too am to blame for not sending it back but I decided to live with it since they were hard to get at the time.

We've come to expect such great quality from the SE line that any issues that do appear are quite shocking. I just hope PRS is ahead of this and it's not an indication of things to come.
 
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