PRS McCarty Guitar |
McCarty PRS Guitar |
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PRS Comparison Original 24 fret Model VS PRS McCarty
Compare A PRS to a Quicksilver Guaranteed to be of interest to any prospective PRS owner 1. The bridge on the McCarty guitar is totally uncool. As most of you probably already know, the current wraparound PRS McCarty bridge is almost impossible to intonate. I prefer a Tone/Pros Tune-o-Matic or at very least a standard Tune-o-Matic. The original models mostly came with a tremolo but the few that were hardtails came with Tune-o-Matics. The original Tremolo was a one piece solid all brass unit that sounded pretty good and only had a couple of minor problems. It was extremely heavy and it didn't hold perfect tune on the G string. I did like it much better than the newer imported one that comes on the newer guitars. The tremolo system on the newer models robs sustain and tone from your guitar. In fact it totally destroys any possibility of direct coupling. If you can find one of the original models with the Tune-o-Matic bridge on it. Conceivably you will probably have one of the best PRS guitars ever made. (During the years 1985 and 1995 PRS ruled the guitar world) There was nothing better at any price. Today that has of course changed. If you would like to see detailed pictures and read more about this click here 2. The original old style PRS tuners were not perfect, in fact they were a little hard to use. But they worked really well and the gears seemed like they were hardened better. The plating was good because they were made entirely in Germany by Schaller. (Schaller is known to build high quality gear). The McCarty vintage style Kluson tuners are imported from Korea and don't work anywhere near as well as the old models found on the other PRS models. PRS McCarty models always come with these much cheaper tuners (See Costcutting) 3. PRS guitars have always been known to come with excellent specimens of wood. Today that is still true, but most of PRS's smaller competitors have been able to select much better & much higher quality than PRS. (This is simply because PRS builds so many guitars it is impossible to find that much really good wood). The older PRS guitars were built in much smaller quantities and therefore the wood was noticeably better. (Just play one you will notice almost instantly) I would hypothesize and say, when PRS came out with the McCarty model, they tried to kill several birds with one stone. They decided to offer a lesser expensive grade of wood and because of Ted McCarty's name they assumed they could still charge the same amount. No wait a minute they could actually charge more !!!! This of course goes back to one of my non technical reasons that I don't like the McCarty guitar. Don't worry I'll be listing plenty more technical reasons why I don't like it also. The fact of the matter is PRS uses lesser expensive Eastern non figured maple on the McCarty models and more expensive western big leaf maple on their Custom and CE models. 4. PRS offers several types of pickups, I am not knocked out over any of them. However if I had to pick my favorite it would unquestionably be the combination of the HFS and the Vintage Bass. These are the pickups that PRS offers that are the most versatile and offer the widest variety of tones. This paragraph is not intended to be a factual paragraph, I am just expressing my personal opinion. and my opinion is that the McCarty pickups are weak and muddy. (The muddiness probably comes from the fact that the neck pickup is placed in Gibson's muddy spot and not in PRS's sweet spot. PRS pickups were one of my favorite pickups in the early 90's. I used them in lots of guitars. Today I like the Seymour Duncan pickups better and they happen to cost a little less also. The Seymour Duncan pickups are more articulate and generally I like the tone over anything else I have used. |