As a longtime PRS player (since 1999) I'm well aware of the stereotyping and chirping about PRS guitars.
I also don't care. Guitars are tools to an end, and if one kind doesn't work for your sound, then go get one that does.
What I will try to get across to electric guitar buyers today is that PRS, besides its well-deserved rep for the tightest QC in the business, has never stopped trying to get better.
Case in point: Its pickups. I had McCarty and Hollowbody-II guitars that were wonderful guitars, but back in the early 2000s the pickups were just blah, and PRS got a rep for sounding sterile. (I'd go put in Seymour Duncans or Classic 57s and get the sound I was after.)
But Paul Reed Smith never stopped trying to get better sounding pickups. He developed the excellent 57/08 pickup (clear, open PAF style) and the hotter 59/09 version. He found a stash of old wire and made the 53/10 pickups, the vintage pickup to kill them all, till he ran out of wire and now they're unobtainium. The current 58/15 pickups are terrific too, in the 594 guitars.
Those series of pickups were the missing piece to PRS guitars. If you tried PRS years ago, and found them blah-sounding ... you might want to try a newer McCarty with 57/08s or a 594 with the 58/15s. I think you'll be surprised. They're complete now.
Developing a Strat-style guitar last year brought PRS another dumptruck full of Internet hate, except for the fact that they're pretty great, and the PRS factory is back ordered on them.
Point is, PRS never quits looking for ways to get better. I was away from the brand for about 10-12 years in the 2000s, then came back about 2013 or so. I found not just the pickups had improved, but the rest of the guitars seemed better: small things like tuners, hardware, bridges had gotten better too, and they made for a more "unified" guitar.
These are the best guitars they've ever made, and they've been at it a while.
=K
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