Contrary to Paul Reed Smith's claim in numerous interviews, you cannot walk into any guitar shop, pick up any PRS SE and play it on stage that night. It will need a going-over by a tech. Maybe the American guitars are that good, but the SE's are not. The same is true of Fender, Gibson, Epiphone, Squier, or any other guitar costing less than £1,000. You may be lucky, but it would be easier to take it straight to a good guitar tech to look over and sort out the obvious issues.
Over the last not quite four years (seems much longer) I have bought five guitars - traded one - one cheap electronic amp (the Boss Katana) and one not-so-cheap valve amp (the Fender Princeton Reverb 65 Reissue). Here's the schedule of repairs.
The Boss Katana (from GuitarGuitar, Epsom) didn't need any work. It's a PCB and electronic (aside from the final power amp stage), and so can be made to high standards out of the box, and quality control can be digital, and hence cheap.
The Fender Princeton '65 (from GuitarGuitar, Epsom) needed the pre-amp valves replacing- after only eight months. They got it back to me in a week, and I think it sounds better than it did when I bought it.
The first guitar was the Epiphone Les Paul (from GuitarGuitar, Epsom). It needed something doing to the electrics, probably the jack socket, and the tech lowered the action and polished the frets while he was at it.
The second is the PRS McCarty 594 SE (from GuitarGuitar, Epsom). That needed a dry solder joint on one of the tone pots fixing, and later on a decent jack socket, a little neck relief and some work on the nut to correct the playability and intonation of the G string.
The third is the Squier Paranormal Telecaster (from Regent Sounds, Denmark St). That needed a decent jack socket and a better selector switch. Upgrading the pick-ups was my little indulgence.
The fourth is the Fender Vintera Mustang (from Sell Us Your Guitar via Reverb). That came with the tremolo system so badly set-up, the bridge was at an angle to the body and the adjustment screws were cross-threaded. My tech sorted all that out, polished the frets, relieved the neck and oiled a dry fretboard.
The last is the PRS Silver Sky SE (from Wildwire Guitars via Reverb). As delivered the tremolo was locked down and there was some string buzz towards the upper frets. My tech unlocked and adjusted the trem, watered and fed the fretboard, polished the frets, adjusted the nut, and replaced the penny-pinching jacket socket with a proper Switchgear one.
This reminds me of what cars used to be in the 1960's and 70's - there would always be something that needed fixing and usually something that rattled. Automakers spent millions upon millions on robot automation assembly to get rid of those problems. Ordinary cars today are built to standards that were engineers' pipe dreams in the 1960's. Today's guitars are built to the same standards as yesterday's cars. The bodies are cut by CNC routers, and the pickups are wound by CNC winders, all the other parts are made in the same way they would have been back in 1960, and all are assembled by hand. A lot of guitars get sold each year, but not enough to justify the kind of investment that would be needed to make a robot assembler and installer for the wiring loom. If that was even possible.
A basic set-up from a tech costs around £50 - £100 depending on what needed doing. It's worth the money.
Everything you have heard about the Silver Sky SE is true. It sounds like you dreamed a Strat should sound like, plays like a dream (now) and Wildwire had one that weighed just over 7lbs. The Mustang could easily become my default guitar: the Mustang neck pickup should be right up there with the Telecaster neck pickup as something legendary. And it weighs 7lbs. Whereas the Paranormal weighs 8.5lbs, but sounds and plays like it should. The 594SE also weighs 7lbs, plays really well and has a lovely round, thick jazzy neck sound, and a snarly bridge tone - at least that's how I have it dialled in.
Props to Andy at Richmond Guitar Workshop https://www.richmondguitarworkshop.com for sorting all these things out. Support your local tech.
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