Hi CV: I'm sure we understand what Bob is getting at - but I just LOVE that you know exactly what that machine is! That totally made my day: very cool!!!

Cheers - C

If PRS is overpriced crap, what's a Road Worn?

I was looking at purchasing an SE series (I think they are the lower end) and it didn't feel good to me. It felt kind of cheap. I left that day with a used 2002 MIA Strat.

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To follow up....Overpriced based on the price point other American guitar manufactuers have set using most of the same materials.

Yes people like different style guitars. I myself love different Gibsons, Fenders, Ibanez, Hagstrom solid bodies.

Tone is all a perspective and equipment, and can come down to the amp, effects, guitar set up. If you are a person who just picks up a guitar and doesn't take all into account you'll never be satisfied.

Yes people do have different sized hands.....and feet.

My "personal" opinion is Gibson and Fender (companies) invented the solid body guitar buisiness and they are legendary. I respect the companies more for making the innovations that have carried out so long. Les Paul and Leo Fender did something special and were innovators...i would say Orville Gibson but he was a drunk who squanderd his company away.(Yes Leo left Fender but not in the same manner...as far as i know there wasn't a bartender involved in his departure)

Paul Smith is just a figure head who glad hands people and is just a face. He sold the company a few years ago and just goes to meet and greets to try to get people to pay $9,000+ for Private Stock. (I bet him and Steve Jobs are best friends.)

PRS must be doing something right. They're celebrating their 25th anniversary this year.

Overpriced? Yeah, you can make that argument for some of their more expensive guitars. Crap? No way. I would put the Mira I just bought on the same quality level as the American Deluxe Strat I own The fret work, hardware, finish, pickups, electronics and playability are all outstanding.

John

I have no problem with the design. Although i dont like the neck on the custom 24. I think the Mira looks like their best effort. My initial point is, given the materials and manufacturing, not doing anything special that other companies aren't doing already. Is the price tag warranted vs. other brands who do the same thing for less money?

YES! +1

In the last ten years before being laid off My rigging crew and I had set up several such pieces and many others.

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I've played some very nice examples of PRS guitars and would like to have one someday. They're hardly crap, but they are priced a little high. Similar to Gibson in that respect I think.

Been playing Strats better than 50 year's now. Have owned two MIA PRSs' and agree with the findings regarding the neck. In that quarter, a Clapton neck carve on a PRS guitar would have been a sure keeper for me.

Fit and finish on these guitars have a certain panache Fender has yet to capture. It may have something to do with the way the carve top handles light, or the varieties of tops and finishes they offer. Fenders' new Sienna Sunburst is the first to really jog my interest in finishes, but if you want to take it to the max, Alainlafrance's Russian, IMHO, is the equivalent of a PRS in appearance.

Now to my favorite issue.....cases. PRS cases outshine Fender's hands down, and are made by the same company. Even the cases supplied by the Custom Shop don't compare to quality, fit and finish of those supplied with the regular line MIA PRS guitars. I know. I've had them in my home, side by side.

Doc

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like others have said (sorry if ive missed something or this has already been said, i read the first page and skipped the rest) the quality of prs isnt bad, they just dont do it for me..... now, if you want crap, check out B.C. Rich....

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Well, it's a matter of taste, I guess, more than anything else.
Crap they definitely aren't.
Overpriced? That would be rather Gibson. (money you pay vs quality you get)
I got a SE Custom when I wanted something with humbuckers, it just felt and sounded great next to the Gibsons I was comparing it with.
And all of the PRS's I tried were playable out of the box, the setup was impeccable.
I can appreciate many things about the company, they are not so succesful for no reason; and having no tradition per se allows them to do pretty much anything they feel like.
Their list of artists is very impressive for a company that young - Carlos Santana, Al Di Meola, Dave Navarro, Mark Tremonti... And they are just the ones that got the signatures, the artists list has people like Alex Lifeson, Dave Matthews, Derek Trucks, Dweezil Zappa, Neal Schon, Nils Lofgren, Ted Nugent and many more.
What I don't like so much about their products is that the high-end guitars to me look like glass cases ones, the kind I'd rather put on display than play.
To sum it, crap and overpriced I find them not, a bit; looks, sounds and feel is just personal taste.
And anyway, on my wish list the next two ones are a Telecaster Thinline JA-90 and a Hagstrom Viking (love them, amazing value for money in my book). But hell, a SE Custom semi-hollow would be really nice too.

Nah, he's a very fine guitar builder in his own right and continues to spend a good bit of his time doing just that.

To be sure, at that price level my personal taste would take me more towards a Hamer in America or a Martyn Booth in Britain.

But to diss PRS on quality grounds is off the mark. Apart from anything else, they deserve so much credit for raising standards in the mainstream industry back when the biggest boys were really not doing QC like they should. PRS dragged the whole thing forward by decades - hence their success.

Cheers - C

The PRS Modern Eagle II is a very nice guitar and would be my choice of Strat styled guitar with HB's if was loaded rich but for $5000 i could have a custom shopped Strat and or Tele. The artists that i've heard play PRS do make them sound sweet though. But to be fair to PRS there are other brands out there not as good that are way more expensive.

I like PRS guitars, the day after I sold my first, I regretted it. I picked up a Custom 24 SE a few months ago, it's a great guitar for the money. The sound suits me to a tee, and the finish is outstanding. I would have no qualms in buying another one, who know's what the summer might bring