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PRS SE 245
Body - Mahogany with maple top
Frets - 22
Scale Length - 24.5"
Neck - Mahogany
Fretboard - Rosewood
Bridge - Stoptail
Gibson Les Paul
Body - Mahogany with maple top
Frets - 22
Scale Length - 24.75" (although, apparently it's really 24 and 9/16)
Neck - Mahogany
Fretboard - Rosewood
Bridge - Tune-O-Matic
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
The PRS was lovely, but it sounded very different. I'd suggest trying them side by side and seeing what you prefer.
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Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youThey will definitely be in the same ballpark with the same Pickups
the PRS construction is more different than the spec sheet suggests. A full width tenon and stiffer neck with small headstock will account for some. Is the PRS a single cut?
Wraptails feel quite different to TOMs
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Surprised you'd say not comparable when they're so similar I'd have thought it must surely be in the same ballpark as WezV suggests. Problem in trying them out is that it wouldn't be possible to do so using the same pickups hence looking at the specs theoretically instead.
Forgive my ignorance but what is the tenon? Where the neck joins the body?
The headstock is actually one of the main reasons I'm looking for an alternative rather than just buying a Gibson, never thought it would have that much effect on tone but I suppose everything does to some degree.
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It’s the overal neck stiffness I believe has an affect, the size of the vibrating paddle on the end affects this
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Pickups, hardware etc can be changed to suit but if the above aren’t right, I won’t enjoy playing it.
It makes a huge difference even on apparently similar guitars. For example - Rickenbacker 330, perfect for me. Gibson ES335, all wrong to the point of being nearly unplayable.
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Hope I've phrased that right...
I think you are right. The mahogany/maple ratio is very important. I think that was why I got rid of all my PRS (what would now be Core Series) in the end. They just didn't sound as good to me as a good Gibson. The top carve is very deep (much deeper than a Les Paul), so the maple is a lot thicker where the bridge is attached.
I think they have tried to fix this on the 594. The mahogany is thicker on that. I played one a while back and was very impressed. It sounded better than any of the PRS that I've had in the past.
Reason I ask this is because this thread convinced me to get a Gibson rather than a PRS but out of the 2 Les Paul's I fancy, the one that costs half the price of the other (even after factoring in new pickups) has a slim taper neck so wondering if that stops it sounding like a proper classic les Paul since the neck made such a difference on the PRS.
Some longer, some shorter?
I think.
tbh i don't think its the main one unless its an extreme profile- neck dimensions don't vary that much, 99% of guitars sit between 21-24mm thick, and a V profile is not much less stiff than a C one
the variation between pieces of wood can be just as much.... but you also have length, headstock size/angles, tuner weight, truss rod/reinforcement styles etc... its all the little differences together
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A short tenon is more than strong enough if well fitted.... you just have no way of knowing if its been well fitted on a finished guitar. Sadly gibson used the hidden nature of the joint to cut corners on some
Long tenon's have the advantage of being visible in the pickup route so you can see if its badly fitted
Gibson use a narrow tenon, its narrower than the width of the fretboard. PRS's tenon is full width, its the same width as the fretboard
A gibson Long tenon
And PRS full width style
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PRS do McCarty models - which are supposed to be as close as a Gibson as they can with modern PRS manufacturing processes - Ted McCarty was with Gibson from 1950-1966 and responsible for a lot of the models and features still desirable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_McCarty
Ted McCarty was a mentor to Paul Reed Smith.
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