PRS McCarty opinions please.

ICBM

DefaultM said:

Might get another CE for £600. Mine has the maple top, in all honesty if I get a blue painted one which I assume is just all mahogany am I going to notice much difference in tone?
I'm thinking not because how much difference can a small maple top make?

A lot. I had two otherwise identical PRSs, the Standard 22 and a Custom 22 - the same in every way apart from the Custom's maple cap. (Even the same colour!) The Custom sounded much brighter, tighter, more focused and aggressive.

The maple top is not small either - if you've ever seen a pic of a PRS body cut in half, the maple is half the thickness of the whole thing - it just doesn't look it on a complete guitar because of the top carve which makes it much thinner at the edges.

Check the spec on the CE, it could be either mahogany or alder if I remember right. They do sound slightly different but much less so than from the maple-top ones.

Adam_MD

Pre 95 is alder if memory serves. I think it was during 95 they made the switch to mahogany. As ICBM said the maple cap makes a big difference tone wise, not better just different, Though it doesn't look thick because of the curve in the centre of the guitar it's just under half the total thickness. It's not thin like an SEs top.

DefaultM

Ah crap I'm going to end up buying it haha. I want one for sticking in drop D and I figure one of the 2 will be perfect.
I realised the difference between the custom and standard but for some reason it didn't register that it would be the same for CEs because of the maple neck. Makes sense though.

crunchman

ICBM said:

A lot. I had two otherwise identical PRSs, the Standard 22 and a Custom 22 - the same in every way apart from the Custom's maple cap. (Even the same colour!) The Custom sounded much brighter, tighter, more focused and aggressive.

The maple top is not small either - if you've ever seen a pic of a PRS body cut in half, the maple is half the thickness of the whole thing - it just doesn't look it on a complete guitar because of the top carve which makes it much thinner at the edges.

Would agree.  Because of the deep carve the maple top is very thick in the middle where the bridge mounts, so it's going to have a big effect on how string vibrations are transferred to the body.

Maple topped Les Paul Standards are reputed to sound different from an all mahogany Les Paul Custom.  Given the thicker layer of maple on the PRS I think the effect is magnified.

DefaultM

I think I might prefer this one to the maple topped one.