After nearly 30 years in the business Paul Reed Smith has
created some undeniably classic guitars. But few are revered as much as the
mighty Custom 24, which for many players represents the best of what PRS has to
offer.
The Custom 24 has been the company’s flagship model since 1985,
and has enjoyed enduring popularity throughout its run. Unfortunately the high
price has kept the 24 out of the reach of many cash-strapped guitarists.
PRS made the new S2 Custom 24 more accessibly priced by doing
away with the Core Custom 24’s most labor-intensive features. But it’s still
built, assembled, and finished at the company’s Stevensville, Maryland,
factory, with the same attention to detail as pricier PRS models. It costs a
fraction of the price of a Core Custom 24, yet it dishes tones very much in the
same league as the company’s flagship axe.
Skin Deep
The S2 Custom 24 has a solid mahogany body with an
asymmetrically beveled, two-piece flame maple top. The beveling gives the top a
sharper, more SG-like profile than the standard Custom 24’s curvy,
violin-carved top. The controls sit flat against the body, rather than recessed
into it as on the standard Custom 24. The lovely finish is free of
imperfections, and the transparent black poly/acrylic finish of our review
model provides a subtly luxurious look.
The
bridge pickup really comes alive with a bit of overdrive grit and does a
bang-up job of delivering smoky blues lead sounds that jump in the lower
midrange.
The S2 comes loaded with a pair of newly designed ceramic
humbuckers based on the company’s HFS Treble and Vintage Bass models. They can
be combined or selected individually from the guitar’s three-way switch, or
coil-tapped by pulling on the tone control. The guitar’s two-point vibrato is
the same one that’s loaded in PRS’s SE guitars. It’s a smooth and stable unit,
though not as refined as the vibratos found on the Core guitars. Still, they’re
damn close for the price.
The three-piece set neck uses PRS’s wide and meaty “pattern
regular” profile and is capped by a 24-fret rosewood fretboard. Bird inlays
give the guitar an upmarket look, though the solid ivory look isn’t quite as
luxurious as the abalone used on PRS’s flagship Custom 24s. But the S2 Custom
24’s neck feels a lot like those used on the upscale models, and it features
the same fretwire, dual-action truss rod, gold leaf headstock signature inlay,
and self-lubricating, brass-permeated nut. The S2 Series locking tuners seem to
hold their tuning just as well as those used on PRS’s leading models.
Cousin To A Classic
The S2 Custom 24’s stripped-down appointments
and streamlined features make it an ideal guitar for budget-minded PRS fans who
tend to be a bit hard on their guitars. The guitar’s polyurethane and acrylic-blended
finish doesn’t feel as silky as the company’s super-thin V12 finish, but the
combination makes the S2 more resilient to sweat, grime, and moisture. The
poly/acrylic finish doesn’t seem to harm the guitar’s resonance either. It
sounds full and rich even before you plug it in.
Through
a Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier, the ceramic-magnet S2 HFS bridge humbucker
produces smooth clean tones, with clear, refined highs and tight, substantial
lows. Compared to PRS’s standard HFS Treble pickup, the S2 has a little less
midrange presence, and it isn’t quite as sensitive or responsive.
There’s also a slightly sharp edge to the pick attack, but
that’s easily reigned in by rolling back the tone control slightly. The bridge
pickup is more aggressive than the neck’s lower output S2 Vintage Bass pickup,
which has a warmer tone across the board and a slightly wider dynamic range.
The bridge pickup really comes alive with a bit of overdrive
grit and does a bang-up job of delivering smoky blues-lead sounds that jump in
the lower midrange. Light overdrive tones clean up nicely when rolling back the
volume knob too, allowing for natural transitions from raw, AC/DC-style grit to
more soaring classic rock and blues leads.
Switching to the neck position delivers tones with fat, raunchy
midrange reminiscent of Brian May’s Jazz-era tones, but with a boomier
low-end presence. Coil-tapping enhances the pickup’s already strong lows and
highs and brings the pick attack to the forefront for SRV-style rhythmic blues
romps. Regrettably, though, the guitar’s wiring doesn’t permit combining a
pickup in normal mode with another in coil-tapped mode.
Using both the bridge and neck pickups with the Boogie’s
overdriven orange channel delivers the sustain and molten rhythm tones that
helped define ’90s hard rock and metal. There’s less detail in the midrange
than you’d hear from a Core Custom 24, but the overall tone is thick, punchy,
and quiet under extreme amounts of gain. Unfortunately, the lows don’t have the
rubbery snap and recoil of PRS’s HFS Treble or exceptional 57/08 pickups, but
their depth and spread put the tones squarely in the same ballpark.
The Verdict
For cash-strapped players longing for the refined tones
and exceptional build quality of a true USA-made Custom 24, the S2 Custom 24 is
the best option on the market. PRS’s cost-cutting efforts are smart,
thoughtful, and probably invisible to casual observers. There’s little loss of
tone quality—this guitar sounds like a PRS. While it might not have the
super-silky feel or vibrant looks of a true Custom 24, the quality lives up to
what you’d expect from a Maryland-built PRS, and is far beyond what you’ll find
in most imitators.
To get your hands on one of these it will cost you roughly $1400. The bridge pickup lacks a little response but its great resonance and tone makes up for it. Overall I'd give it 8.5 out of 10. Hope this helped.
Cheers,
Visal.
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