Why do people complain about the pickups on PRS S2?

[Basauri]

I had a Cu24 SE with 85/15s and though I like vintage sounding pickups (and they’re not) I thought they were nice sounding pickups. Powerful yet clear.

 

[93studiolite]

Ok. After playing with my amp settings a bit, taking out some mids and dialing in some more treble, I’ve got both pickups sounding very nice to my ears. Not as much bass on the Vintage and the HFS still sounds very mean.

 

[JJJ]

I changed pickups in my S2 starla a while ago... nothing wrong with them I just didn't like the specific voicing. They were very gretschy/TV Jonesish and I had been chasing a real old school PAF tone for a while, and this slab mahogany guitar was the perfect subject.

I find generally there is a lot of snobbery around the electronics and hardware on these things. I find the pickups were actually really nice, they're just not for me. The electronics as you can see are tidy enough - I have spare pots and caps and whatnot but I never felt compelled to change any of these. The tapers are fine, the switch works fine, the volume already has a treble bleed cap fitted, the wiring and soldering was neat, the tone control sounds nice and the push pull feels and works just great.

People want to hate it because it's not US made as the rest of the instrument is. If PRS pulled a dodgy and lied about country of origin or never specified, just stamped the back with their brand, people would love these pots and pickups

As far as hardware goes, only the import bigsby is giving me any trouble. It stays in tune, the arm just becomes loose and needs tightening every string change.

 

[JJJ]

Ok. After playing with my amp settings a bit, taking out some mids and dialing in some more treble, I’ve got both pickups sounding very nice to my ears. Not as much bass on the Vintage and the HFS still sounds very mean.

You can probably coax some high end out by playing with the pole pieces too

 

[93studiolite]

You can probably coax some high end out by playing with the pole pieces too

I never even think of doing that. I’ve read about people changing the pole pieces, but it never comes to my mind when I’m messing with pickups. I do need to try it.