PRS SE CE 24 VS

After having returned a Cort G300 I bought a PRS DGT at another shop which were unplayable. After the return i got this one mostly because of all the hype. At arrival the volume pot was defective. Lots of scratch and if i rested my hand on it, the sound disappeared. So i asked Thomann to send another pot as i have modded close to a hundred guitars over the past 10 years. But....no... they didnt want to do that, but told me to use contact spray. So... of cause i asked them to send me some contact spray even though i know it will not cure the pots "kill switch" ability. But.... no..... So I had a brand new PRS that didnt work and if I would change the pot myself the warranty would not apply. What warranty ??? Apparently ythis guitar didnt have any warranty except a return. At this point i didnt even want to discuss the 6 frets that made my fretrocker rock itself dizzy.
But the guitar itself had something that i liked in terms of sound, looks and feel ( if i dont count in the buzz from the horrible fretwork)
I decided to disregard the warranty, leveled, recrowned and polished the frets and changed the pot to a quality pot. Then did a complete setup and intonation and fresh string as the factory strings were starting to rust. (on day 6)

PRS has a strange sense of color choice. The pu frames were white(ish), the top of the 3 way switch was white, the tip of the tremolo arm was black and the knobs looked like a too old orange. Now it has chrome knobs and the plastic is all black. And while i was at it i put on some Grover locking tuners and Schaller strap locks.
Now....... it is a road worthy, great sounding and REALLY playable guitar as it should have been from the beginning.

A mild slap to Thomann customer service and a big slap to PRS for the lack of QC.
By the.... this was actually my third try on the PRS SE series. The first two were GOA ( Garbage On Arrival )
I have been a dedicated Thomann customer for many years with more than 200 product invoiced... so im not leaving the shop as i have had many more good experiences.... but if the above story repeats itself... I might not come back.

This is the second PRS I have ordered from Thomann, cause I liked very much the first one (semi hollow!) This PRS has another solid style (Gibson like) and it's a great guitar, too!
+ Very nice quality & playability!
+ Nice pickups with push/pull for coil split!
+ Great looks (I also love that bird inlays!)
+ Setup almost perfect from the box (Just some strings were out of tune!)
+ Nice case (included!)
+ Nice-unique PRS tremolo system! A simple-short instruction paper manual would be useful to setup this unique tremolo bar, but setup is easy to figure out, just by pushing the tremolo bar gently-firmly on the hole (as I found!)

All in all, a beautiful and very nice quality guitar for the price!

Built to a high standard, impressive warm tone. I like the width of the fretboard, not too wide or thin. Just a really nicely built guitar with an excellent sound. I have a Gibson SG, Epiphone hollowbody, Black Beauty les paul and a washburn, this is something different and quickly becoming my favourite to play and practice on. Highly recommend for those not looking to splash major money but still have a lot of enjoyment with a PRS

Dass PRS auch im niedrigerem Preissegment sehr gut verarbeitete und gut klingende Gitarren baut, ist bekannt. Aber dass sie sich mit der Qualität dieser SE CE Modelle gleich Konkurrenz zu den US-Core-Line-Modellen machen, war mir nicht bewusst. Es gibt an der Gitarre nichts auszusetzen. Mir ist es auch "wurscht", ob der Body zwei- oder dreiteilig ist. Die 85/15s Pickups klingen sehr überzeugend - auch gesplittet im Singlecoilmodus. Das Tremolo ist sehr stimmstabil und man braucht auch keine Locking-Mechaniken als Upgrade. Das einzige, was ich an dieser Gitarre machen musste, war den Sattel etwas zu bearbeiten. Aber auch nur, weil ich generell 10er Saiten spiele. Logischerweise muss man danach auch die Schrauben im Federfach des Tremolos etwas weiter reindrehen, um die erhöhte Saitenspannung auszugleichen und die Intonation an der Tremolobrücke etwas nachjustieren. Aber das war ja meine persönliche Sache und hat nichts mit der Qualität zu tun.