Absolutely fantastic instrument

Before talking about the PRS let me just do a quick intro that may inspire you to save some money... Before this I made the crazy move and bought a brand new 2021 Figured Gibson ES-335, a 3300€ guitar which I later sold, it featured:

• Pleked fretboard, 5 star playability
• Most beautiful guitar I ever laid my eyes upon, stunning figured top and back, amazing gloss nitro finish;
• Played very well, great action, great intonation, some minor buzzes;
• Didn't love the pickups (too hot and compressed).
• Volume pot developed severe cracking very fast.
• Didn't love the weight (4,5 kg)
• Tiny workmanship flaws in fingerboard, binding, headstock...
• Terrible tarnishing start appearing fast on the nickel hardware.

Although I loved it I decided it was just too much value to hang out of home, and was a bit disapointed with some quirks on the finish, a lot of cracking on the pots and noisy/faulty neck pickup, so I decided to sell it and re-invest on a new mid-priced guitar that was as well constructed but didn't cost + 2000€, something like a used Ibanez JSM100 (I previously had the JSM10 and loved it).

I never before played or even considered buying a PRS guitar, although I always digged the idea of a guitar body design that had both Fender and Gibson influence. I knew I wanted a semi-hollow maple body with 24.75 scale on a mahogany neck with quality fingerboard and even frets. So my research was down to:

• Japanese Ibanez JSM100 (2300€)
• Japanese Yamaha SA2200 (2000€)
• Indonesian Ibanez JSM10 (1090€+600€ hardware upgrade and plek service) * I had this guitar before
• And the last-minute contender from China, the PRS SE Hollowbody II (1359€)

I was aware of the American made 4600€ PRS Hollowbody II Piezo with it's beautifully carved solid maple tops and backs, but not an SE version of it with more traditional laminate construction and a nice 1300€ price tag. I was very interested as soon as I learned about it, but was uncertain about two things, the slightly longer 25 inch scale and the solid wrap-around bridge instead of the most classic ABR-1 bridge and tailpiece.

It was really great to find it in a local store of mine, had the chance to try it in person, 30 min after testing, I imediatelly bought it. I believe it's actually the most expensive SE at 1300€, and you can feel a lot of effort and attention was put into this guitar... My honest first impression was that it felt at least as good as my previous Gibson ES-335, and even better in some areas.

• Amazing and flawless construction, oiled neck, polished frets, damn even the maple binding on the F-Holes is exquisitely finished;
• Superb action and intonation;
• Very light weight with no neck dive;
• BIG resonant sound with great dynamics, great to play unplugged;
• Amazing pickups
• Amazing tuning stability
• Internal buffer and flexible outputs
• and of course, the most distinctive spec, the LR Baggs preamp.

Man I've got to say the bridge feels like a work of art. It's super confortable to rest your hand, super stable, and allows for fine adjustments in any direction for proper string setup (intonantion, buzz, string height). It definitely can deliver excellent performance, I dare to say it's just better than the ABR thanks to longer sustain and better tuning stability. Underneath the bridge there's a small plug that connects the piezos through a tiny hole under the bridge to the preamp. Basic maintenance is a breeze.

Ebony fingerboard (à lá Gibson Custom) with mother of pearl bird inlays looks and feels stuning, old-school mahogany neck and sides, laminate maple top and back with figured maple veneer and binding (yes, it costs 1/3 of a Gibson and it has figured maple binding, including on the F-Holes!). I must really applaud the craftmanship, Cor-Tek make these guitars to PRS specs, but make it in full style and attention to detail. The guitar is completely hollow inside (almost), with the only exception being a block of wood connecting bridge and back of the guitar. I was afraid it would neck dive due to mahogany neck and ebony freatboard, but the maple and mahogany on the body nicely balance the instrument.

At first I didn't really pay attention to the piezo side of it, but meanwhile I ended up incorporating it's dedicated piezo output to great success, the LR Baggs piezo bridge produces very big and rich acoustic sounds, as good as my Yamaha CPX 900 with state of the art transducers and preamp, and the ability to mix it just a tiny bit with the magnetic pickups is really a work of magic, especially if you're playing jazz and want to bring additional presence and body to your magnetic sound, the scooped nature of the piezo preamp really compliments the AMAZING 58/15 S pickups. The pickups are low-medium output with amazing dynamics and a nice warm and midrangy sound. Honestly these are some of the the best pickups I ever played, and they are potted(!), I don't know what kind of black magic PRS incorporated here.

My favourite feature on this guitar is it's routing options, you can run it as simple passive pickup guitar via the "MAG" output with all of it's impedance variables and no buffer or battery, just pure passive experience. Or, you can just run the "MIX/PIEZO" output and have the whole signal cleverly buffered inside the guitar with independent volume for pickups and piezo. Honestly this is the best way to get full power from your passive pickups, no matter the ammount of effects or size and quality of your cables, the internal 9V battery powers a super transparent buffer that can drive even low input impedance interfaces. I remember before with my Ibanez JSM-20 I had a crazy ideia of taping with velcro a mini buffer pedal on the lower back of my guitar, had a small but super high quality patch cable running the output directly to input of pedal (I was using the Xotic Super Clean for this, with 9v battery inside). My objective was to avoid as much as possible losing high end due to cable impedance, but I didn't want to use active pickups. This PRS SE Hollowbody II Piezo does the same (or not, as you desire), except it is much more conveniently installed inside the guitar. Here is a link to PRS wiring diagram https://support.prsguitars.com/hc/article_attachments/4420458056219/prs-se-hollowbody-piezo-wiring-diagram.pdf It looks like the tone and volume are wired to a 50's wiring, but I'm not sure...

The way I'm running it for practice is both outputs direct to the two inputs of my Volt 276 interface, the MAG pickup into hi-z instrument input (1 MegaOhm) and the piezo into mic input (3 kOhm, although you can get extra high end if you switch to Hi-Z, but it has too much volume for me and I honestly enjoy the warmth of the Lo-Z mic input), one going left and the other going right, then I have Guitar Rig 6 running 100% wet effects (delay and reverb) and I toggle direct monitor on the Volt so I have glorious fat and defined DI sound with no A/D conversion, just the Volt 276 Compressor and Vintage EQ and a wet digital insert on top running reverbs and delays. To record or play with amp simulators I disable direct monitoring, compressor and EQ, and mix wet/dry on Guitar Rig. Super happy.

Once you have both outputs being used the mix/piezo output only outputs the piezo. So on my left channel I have my traditional 100% passive pickup tone experience with nice and clear 1MOhm input impedance. Here I can place any fuzz, wah, delay, and play around with the volume and tone pots of the guitar and get proper passive behaviour from those (also important if you're running virtual amp modellers). And on the right channel, whenever inspiration asks, I have a hi-fi piezo tone, to beef up some parts or to completely change to an acoustic character. And then a whole new world of effects come to mind, like running 100% wet effects on the piezo output like a dirty tape delay that you summon anytime with a simple volume sweep on the piezo knob and let it trail out on the background while you riff your humbuckers. That's IMO a killer feature and a hell lot of value for the price.

This guitar can do everything and anything, and do it in style. The flamed maple veneer is very beautiful and the Black Gold Burst (kinda like a deeper sunburst) contrasts nicely with the ebony fingerboard and mother of pearl bird inlays, lending it a modern classic look. It plays as well as 3300€ Gibson yet costs 1/3. If you're looking for a set neck ES-335 inspired guitar I strongly suggest you try this guitar. If you don't notice the SE on the headstock it will probably feel like a USA made instrument to you. Sure it doesn't have a nitro finish, but one day I might honestly get a luthier to refinish it in high gloss nitrocellulose. That would be like a 150€ job at worse. The Gibson's lacquer was very effective in keeping dust and fingertips off the finish, as well as looking STUNNING. This sticky Polyurethane finish is the only slightly negative point about the guitar. It's well applied and all, but just can't compete with the neat shine of Nitrocellulose.

Also worth to mention these Chinese made guitars are set up at PRS United Kingdom headquarters before being delivered in a decent hardcase with some tools to EU clients and stores, like a final QC control with a QC check chart. Indeed the guitar was PERFECT straight from the case, featuring Daddario NYXL strings. The guitar had been sitting in the store for only 1 month. Nicely delivered, bravo PRS!