I bought one locally in Adelaide SA just this week. Went to the store to pick it and inspect it and it looked beautiful. Check played some notes and frets and it all looked ok with just a little abrasion at some fret ends. When I got it home I checked the frets with my fret rocker and found 5 high frets. Nothing terrible as I have a few Stew Mac tools to fix this problem. After a couple of hours with a fret kisser and fret dressing file it was perfectly flat and fret ends smooth. Now I had bought a PRS McCarthy SE a month before at the same store and its frets were all perfect but one volume pot needed a wire resoldering to get it to work. You may well be right about questioning PRS, quality checks at the factory. Seems in my 2 purchases I picked up one with a minor problem (soldered joint) and one requiring some fret work. Thankfully I could do both myself, but I dont think too many people buying these guitars would have tackled fixing it themselves. I think your review was exceptionally well balanced considering it ended up costing you extra money to have it fixed. PRS make great guitars but the factory is letting down the product simply by not finishing the unit properly. All for the sake of a few more minutes spent leveling the frets and checking that the guitar is free of faults when it leaves the factory. Like you, now that is completely playable and fixed I look forward to getting many years of quality use from this outstanding guitar. Loved your review and look forward to seeing more in the future. PS Next guitar I check to buy in a store, I will run my fret rocker over it before purchasing. :)
Thank you so much for your detailed response and for sharing your story. I completely agree with you as to how sad an experience it can be when you get a guitar worth a lot of your savings and you find out issues with it, which should not be there. PRS really needs to step up it's QC game and ensure that a 'signature' guitar has the quality it desereves, because it just does not do any justification to the brand name, let alone the possible damage to the name of the artist as well. I strongly feel that when you spend so much to get a guitar, it should be absolutely worth every penny you spend on it. It's a shame that we have to spend extra money just to get the guitar to a playable standard. Regardless, I have the guitar fixed now, and it plays to my liking, but honestly if I were given a choice to go through this experience again, I would surely decline. Happy to know that you got your situation resolved as well. And also, very thankful for your appreciation for my video and the sub, I will try to create more honest reviews like this. Thank you. Cheers.
I buy guitars online all the time, but I’ve had the foresight to invest in a few luthier tools to fix any fret issues (actually almost any issues) rather than just rely on others to do things for me and charge hundreds of dollars for simple fixes. Basic fretwork (short of refret jobs) is very easy to learn.
I agree that having a few luthier tools and skills is a great way to avoid spending hundreds of dollars, but sometimes you are just not sure how to fix the issue and are concerned that it might mess up the problem even further, hence I did not mind spending the extra bucks to get my peace of mind and get the problem sorted for me.
i'm glad you posted this, i purchased one online too because it was impossible to find in stock and it ticked all the boxes for me, but no matter how much i adjust my truss rod or string height i get fret buzz on certain frets, now i know it's not my playing badly that's entirely to blame i'll invest in some fret tools for when i replace the strings. looks like i'm going to fill in my daily YT viewing with fretwork videos for a while now. note to self: they're skinny top, heavy bottom strings as standard on this guitar.
I really feel that 'signature' guitars should come with best quality checks and should keep up to the brand and the artist's name. It's really sad to see that it's not only just me that had to go through this. Hope you got yours fixed and can enjoy the instrument.
Thank you my friend. It's not been the best experience, but in the end, I love the way it turned out. Hope you were able to resolve your issues too. Cheers.
I bought the same guitar. Also a blue Holcomb of 2023. And the guitar had exactly the same problem. This is a bzzzz in the area of 12-14 frets. I also had to give it to the guitar master. The problem was partially solved, but it is impossible to lower the strings below 1.3 - 1.4 mm without this bzzzz. But I like 1.0 - 1.2 mm. I'm thinking of replacing the frets with steel ones in the future and aligning the fingerboard. I live in Russia, so I think this problem with the frets arises from a change in humidity. During the production of the guitar, the wood was not completely dried.
Thanks for sharing your story. I appreaciate you sharing your similar thoughts. It's sad to see that so many people have to go through this even after spending good amount of money on a signature guitar. Hope you are able to solve your problem soon.
Keep up your videos ! They always gimme new ideas fiddeling around with my Axe 2. Ontopic: I got the 7 string Holcomb, and tbh It would be the first guitar I´d sell again. It´s neck is just massive and uncomfortable , if you are coming from wizard necks the y just dont feel right. Belonging to the holcomb 7string...save your money, if you prefer thin necks. The humbucker are fine ... I consider changing to different Seymours (personally taste). As you notice I am not the biggest fan of the PRS Holcomb SE 7String...cant say for the 6 String thou.
Thank you so much for your support! I appreciate it a lot. Yes, I noticed the difference in the neck size compared to my JP15 as well, and I guess it does take a bit of getting used to. I like the overall sound of the pickups as they are to my taste. Cheers.
Waiting to review makes sense because the new gear syndrome wears off and you're able to really appreciate positives of the gear or negatives in this case.
nice to see you back. my axe fx 2 is having a eloctronic isssue. when it is back in the game i'll check the preset especially gate between amp/cab idea. cheerrs :)
I also bought it online, when it arrived I saw that the fredboard had a crack, I notified prs and they said they would change it, which they did not do and according to them they repaired it in a very poor way and they wanted to send it to me like that, they told me that it is a “cheap” guitar and that is how they are in general. I refused to receive it and I am waiting for the replacement that will arrive in 6 months. I am in Mexico.
Sad to hear that you had to also go through such an experience. I do not understand how they can call it a 'cheap' guitar and a 'signature' guitar at the same time. It just puts a bad name for the artist as well who is out there endorsing the guitar. Hope you get a replacement soon and hope it is in awesome quality. Thank you for sharing your story.
I recently trade a guitar for the previous model and i can confirm the fret problem. Shockingly simililar to yours. Except from that , it is an excellent instrument.
@@GurtejSinghGuitar it is not a big deal for me, but I planning doing a fret leveling soon. Easy fix , but pricey 😔. I am thinking a lot about stainless steel frets. Extra jumbo.
Bad you had a less than ideal one, i bought one online for my daughter, glad to say its got literally zero issues, she had no wish to play in anything other than standard tuning, so i put a set of 9's on it tuned it up and didnt even have to adjust the truss rod.
Glad you did not have to go through any problems and I am happy that it worked our great for you. It's a great guitar if it's not having any issues and it's setup right. Hope you enjoy it :)
Thanks. I am using the standard gauge it came with 10-52 I think. Have you tried adjusting your fretboard releif? it might help with that buzz. Cheers.
I trusted Ibanez and bought RG9PB.. online... it came with two scratched frets , a loose machine head , minor dents at the back of the neck... which makes me feels like i bought a refurbished guitar.....i still have that and i like that guitar...but i cant forget the disappointment .
It's sad to even see the RG line have similar issues. There was a time when I really used to think RG guitars were the real deal and then prestige was like the best, but I've seen many issues with prestige guitars too honestly.
I would of gone back to the store and told them to give you a refund for the cost of the luthier work. You could have said they already directed you to that repair center and you were afraid so you had to bring it to your guy. Most reputable stores should honour this kind of stuff
Good idea, but they had already offered their luthier to look at it and I did check with them, I don't think they were comfortable covering another luthiers cost purely because they wouldn't know how bad the problem was and how much it would cost me.
Do you find that these pickups cause a lot of noise and electromagnetic interference with your Axe FX? My Mark Holcomb SE created so much noise that got reduced when I turned the face of my guitar, and I wonder if you face the same thing.
I have noticed some noise compared to my JP15, but it's not too bad. Probably beucase the pups are really hot on this one, I sometimes find it dialling down the gain or putting a noise gate helps in certain scenarios.
@@GurtejSinghGuitarOk yes, that's what I concluded too. The pickups are very hot relative to most of my guitars. I had my local guitar tech line the cavity with copper shielding and the extra noise was noticeably reduced!
Cort guitars are a small step above Chinese Fenders. Ive played a bunch of these Holcombs, ive had to level the frets, change the nut, they are better than most of the Cort PRS as far as details but the same, build wise as the less expensive ones. Over 1000$ for a Cort guitar...I just cant do that man, you can get an Ibanez made in Japan for just a little more. I think we are in a bad place with electric guitars right now, Cinese and Indonesian and Korean mass produced fakewood guitars for over 1500$ ?!?!?? No nope and nope.
I couldn't agree with you more. It's really hard to find a good 'budget' guitar nowadays in my opinion. I really expected more from a signature guitar and I'm glad that I got it fixed myself. At least now I'm happy with it and it plays much better compared to when I got it. Thank you so much for sharing your views.
I wanst aware that PRS would have such QC issues, but yeah I think I have understood that unless you are purchasing the top of the line gear from these brands, there are probably going to be some QC issues. I was expecting a 'signature' guitar to have some standards atleast.
