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Compare A PRS to a
Quicksilver
Guaranteed to be of
interest to any prospective PRS owner
1.
The bridge on the McCarty guitar is totally uncool. As most of you
probably already know, the current wraparound PRS McCarty bridge is almost
impossible to intonate. I prefer a Tone/Pros Tune-o-Matic or at very least a
standard Tune-o-Matic. The original models mostly came with a tremolo but the
few that were hardtails came with Tun-o-Matics. The original Tremolo was a one
piece solid all brass unit that sounded pretty good and only had a couple of
minor problems. It was extremely heavy and it didn't hold perfect tune on
the G string. I did like it much better than the newer imported one that comes
on the newer guitars.
The tremolo system on the newer models robs
sustain and tone from your guitar. In fact it totally destroys any possibility
of direct coupling.
If you can find one of the original models
with the Tune-o-Matic bridge on it. Conceivably you will probably have one of
the best PRS guitars ever made. (During the years 1985 and 1995 PRS ruled the
guitar world) There was nothing better at any price. Today that has of course
changed.
If you would like to see detailed pictures and read more
about this click here
2.
The original old style PRS tuners were not perfect, in fact they were a little
hard to use. But they worked really well and the gears seemed like they were
hardened better. The plating was good because they were made entirely in Germany
by Schaller. (Schaller is known to build high quality gear). The McCarty vintage
style Kluson tuners are imported from Korea and don't work anywhere near as well
as the old models found on the other PRS models.
PRS McCarty models always come with these much cheaper
tuners (See Costcutting)
3.
PRS guitars have always been known to come with excellent specimens of wood.
Today that is still true, but most of PRS's smaller competitors have been able
to select much better and much higher quality
than PRS. (This is simply because PRS builds so many guitars it is
impossible to find that much really good wood). The older PRS guitars were built
in much smaller quantities and therefore the wood was noticeably better.
(Just play one you will notice almost instantly)
I would hypothesize and say, when PRS came out with the
McCarty model, they tried to kill several birds with one stone. They
decided to offer a lesser expensive grade of wood and because of Ted McCarty's
name they assumed they could still charge the same amount. No wait a minute they
could actually charge more !!!! This of course goes back to one of my non
technical reasons that I don't like the McCarty guitar. Don't worry I'll be
listing plenty more technical reasons why I don't like it also.
The fact of the matter is PRS uses lesser expensive Eastern
non figured maple on the McCarty models and more expensive western big leaf
maple on their Custom and CE models.
4.
PRS offers several types of pickups, I am not knocked out over
any of them. However if I had to pick my favorite it would unquestionably be the
combination of the HFS and the Vintage Bass. These are the pickups that PRS
offers that are the most versatile and offer the widest variety of tones.
This paragraph is not intended to be a factual paragraph, I
am just expressing my personal opinion. and my opinion is that the McCarty
pickups are weak and muddy. (The muddiness probably comes from the fact that the
neck pickup is placed in Gibson's sweet spot and not in PRS's sweet spot.
PRS pickups were one of my favorite pickups in the early
90's. I used them in lots of guitars. Today I like the Seymour Duncan pickups
better and they happen to cost a little less also. The Seymour Duncan pickups
are more articulate and generally I like the tone over anything else I have
used.
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