Fender and every guitar parts maker in the world makes aftermarket parts for Fender guitars. Same for Gibson.
Why is it so hard to find aftermarket parts for PRS guitars? Is the market that small, or is this sort of thing discouraged by PRS?
Seems like a lucrative opportunity missed.
Ideas?
PRS may be the third largest US guitar maker, but they are
tiny compared to Fender and Gibson. Think about it...Fender has been making the same models for over 60 years. And every year their output dwarfs PRS. Gibson has models they've been making since the late 30s. The "installed base" of customers for Fender and Gibson is gigantic compared to PRS.
And the Gibson and Fender offshore stuff sells a TON, and is a cookie cutter copy of what they make in the US. So it's all swappable.
As a result, the aftermarket for these makers is huge. So people selling parts have a huge potential market, and Fender and Gibson have the resources to invest in tons of aftermarket parts.
PRS, on the other hand, doesn't use standard, off the shelf parts in the first place. And who'd want to replace the high quality tuning machines, for example, that come on a Core PRS with an aftermarket part (obviously tuner buttons are a different story, but PRS offers two choices of aftermarket tuner buttons, and companies like crazyparts.de offer buttons, switch tips, and pickup rings for them anyway). And PRS is constantly working to improve and change the instruments in small ways each year. Fender's no longer doing that, nor is Gibson. They're still living in the 1950s and 1960s with their product lines for the most part.
However, John Mann offers some wonderful alternative bridges that are very high quality, so there's another option to customize the guitar.
Most Core PRSes don't use pick guards, so there's not much to offer there. PRS offers pickup choices on their web store, but with the very unique pickups that they offer in some cases, it'd be expensive for them to stock alternative colors.
If you visit the PRS factory, you'll see that it's a relatively small family, compared to the industry giants. That's just a fact, and if there's opportunity there for aftermarket suppliers, it doesn't seem to be a big opportunity, so options are limited.
Moreover, Gibson is a conglomerate, they aren't just making guitars, in fact, guitars have become almost a side line for them. Gibson owns Onkyo, a formerly Japanese company who make hi fi systems, Cerwin Vega speakers, Stanton, who make turntables and cartridges among other DJ and hi fi equipment, KRK studio speakers, and Baldwin Pianos. They own Cakewalk software. They bought - and absolutely
ruined - the wonderful Oberheim synthesizer company, and ran that into the ground. And Gibson has factories in Nashville, Memphis, and Montana. PRS has one relatively small factory, and subcontracts its foreign made instruments!
And all PRS make is guitars. Their own guitars. They don't buy companies like Fender bought Gretsch and several others. Maybe in the future they'll rest on their laurels and stop innovating, and just get into the cookie cutter stuff. But thank goodness, not now!
Gibson and Fender have zero interest in moving the art of lutherie forward, as far as I'm concerned. Contrast that with PRS. Paul is very interested - in fact obsessed - with moving the art forward.
So what's the priority here? Making a bunch of the same junk year after year to sell, or making the guitars better year after year?
My own feeling is that I'd rather have PRS concentrate on what they do best, namely, continue to upgrade and improve their guitars, instead of banging out the same stuff year after year, like Fender and Gibson do.
Those are my thoughts. I'm sure there are additional reasons I didn't think of.
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