kes7u
Wife's husband and Dog's dad
I think you are ignoring my original point. Paul isn't looking to save money or put himself at a disadvantage in any way by NOT using stainless steel frets. He puts non-SS frets on his 5 figure cost guitars. This is a sonic choice from Paul, unless you choose to ignore his own words, which you may, in which case this argument is pointless.Of course the guitar is a direct competitor to Suhr, whether the intention is there or not. It's an S type guitar within 100$ in price of the Suhr. So, one cannot help to make a comparison. Yes, the Suhr has SS frets. Suhr jumped on that wagon early and has used it as a prominent selling point of their guitars, to great success. If you compare the guitars, can you say the Suhr is better in regards to frets? I'd actually argue yes. When you have vintage frets, you only get so many levelings and crownings before you need to refret. Most guitars with stainless frets never need to be refretted. There are original Parkers out there that still have frets that look new as the day they were put on the guitar. But, it's still personal preference. Some folks might not consider durability to be an important factor when it comes to frets.
Being a competitor to someone does NOT mean you have to make your guitar the SAME. Which was the point of the post to which I replied. He indicated that to compete with Suhr, you had to make your frets of the same material. I don't agree with that argument. Some may argue that stainless steel frets are "better", and use this as a reason to purchase this Suhr. If this is an overriding factor for them, then obviously this is the choice they should make. Others are fine with non-SS frets trusting that PRS knows what they are doing from prior experience, or feel that the other pro-PRS points override the fret material, and will purchase the PRS. The beauty of the free market place.
Just making it clear that my point was that PRS was not putting itself at a disadvantage by not using SS frets, but instead making their guitar different by using material that they already use in their other guitars.
If the argument is instead that the non-SS frets combined with the vintage configuration creates a longevity problem down the line, then this may have more merit. This was not the point of the post to which I replied, though.
Kevin