I became aware of this model guitar a few months ago...back in the spring sometime. The moment it entered my orbit of awareness, I knew I had to have it.

Those that know me know that I'm a child of the 80s. Yes, there are gaps in my knowledge of pop culture that get filled in occasionally (like it was the mid-90s before I saw Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller), but I was culturally aware enough to know generally what was going on. That included fashion. And one of my favorite fashions from like 85 through the end of the decade were the bright, neon colors. Bright yellow will always be my favorite color. Right behind it is hot pink. My wife knows that, these days, I tend to wear conservative, dark blues and greys and blacks and things that don't stand out. Back in those days, however, my favorite pair of jams were black with bright yellow and hot pink flowers all over them. Most of my other clothes had bright yellow and hot pink in them somewhere. My favorite car color ( and one of my favorite cars, although I never owned one) will that 1988 Honda Prelude that I believe they called canary yellow. That part of the 80s definitely influenced the colors I like best.

When I saw this specific guitar model for the first time, I thought there was no question, I had to get one. So I began trolling online and, especially, Reverb in hopes to find a good deal on one. Visited a couple of guitar shops, and they either had them regular price or didn't carry the specific model. Finally it happened. I saw 2 of them pop up on my Reverb feed for cheaper than I had seen any yet. In fact, they were both advertised as brand new, but their price was less than the vast majority of the used ones I was seeing. I messaged the seller to be sure that it was brand new. When they replied that the ad was correct, I pulled the trigger on a PRS SE Custom 24 in Bonnie Pink. 

I've now had it for a month. And I can honestly say that I'm still as happy with it as I was on the day it came in. It's, also, the first PRS I've ever had. It's an SE, so it's part of their more affordable, import line. Thinking of it being in their import line, the most recent Squiers I've bought new have caused me to say I won't buy another Squier (they were that bad), but the most recent Epiphones and now this PRS have been excellent guitars and make me wonder why folks bad mouth import guitars.

As soon as this one came in, I did my usual "clean-up" routine on it that I do with every guitar when I first get it home. My little routine allows me to go over the whole guitar and be sure that there's nothing major wrong with it. And this guitar's fit and finish out of the box was top notch. For a "budget" guitar, I was super impressed with its out of the box playability.

I pulled the strings off of it, kind of buffed it out a bit just to get anybody else's funk that might be on it off, oiled the fretboard, bumped all the screws with a screwdriver just to be sure that none were falling out, and then restrung it. Carried it into my little music room, kicked on an amp, plugged it in, and played a few chords. Sonically, it didn't do much for me. It's kind of like my Parker; it sounded like a humbucker guitar, but doesn't really stand out to my ear. I grade all my 'bucker guitars against my LP with Burstbuckers in it, and this one, although it sounded ok, didn't quite have that whatever-it-is I like about those BBs coupled with the LP.

But, the more I played around with it, I was really impressed with the guitar. It'll be a keeper for sure. So, even though it sounds like just a generic humbucker guitar, here are some of my pros and cons on it after playing it for a month.

Pros:

• Since I already mentioned the color, I'll mention it first. It's hot pink, y'all!!! I love the color.
  
• It's super light. Noticeably lighter than both of the guitars I play the most. It weighs in at under 7 1/2 pounds. That's a full pound lighter than my Gibby 339 and and 2 pounds lighter than my LP.
  
•  The PRS trem. I have a love/hate relationship with trems. I hate Floyds because I have never been able to get one to tune to pitch. They're always slightly off sharp or flat. That means I can't play them if I'm with someone else. I really dislike Strat trems because I rest my hand on the bridge, so I end up blocking them so I'm not always pushing it sharp. I occasionally plug the whammy bar in, but that means the trem will on go down. But I love a Bigsby. That trem is about my speed. The PRS one is somewhere between the Strat trem and the Bigsby trem. For the way I play, it seems to work really well. When I rest my hand on it, it doesn't go sharp. Also, when I tune a single string, it doesn't mess with the tuning of the other strings. I'm not sure what kind of voodoo PRS has done to make their trem system work, but it works really well.
• 24 frets - I've never had a guitar with 24 frets. That's just been fun to have.
• The pickups...in single mode. I'm not sure if the pickups do the coil-split thing or the coil-tap thing. Whatever it is, it's the first guitar that I've had that I actually use that in. In fact, I've had two guitars that have done the coil-whatever thing that I ended up just swapping the pickups and pots out so that isn't even an option anymore. The "single" position never did anything for me, and I never, ever used it. But, whatever magic they have in this PRS makes the "single" position sound ok. And then, in the middle "single" position, it actually sounds spanky enough that it can almost pull off a Strat in the 2/4 positions. None of the coil-whatever guitars I have ever had have done that, and I dig it!
• It came with a gig bag. I know this is weird to add as a pro, but the last few sub-$1500 guitars I've bought didn't come with either a bag or a case. So, even just to store it in a closet, I have to buy something extra to put it in. The fact that this one, a budget import line guitar, came with a bag is impressive. And it seems to be a good enough bag that you could actually use it as a gig bag.
  

Cons:

• I'm not a huge fan of the neck. I never realized how much difference a neck could make until I got my Epi Standard 50s LP. It has a bigger than average neck. You can really grab a hold on it when you're playing. I love the neck on that guitar. The one on the PRS is what I would call an average neck. I could grab it or any of my other Epi necks or the neck on most of my Fenders, and I'm not sure I could tell the difference. It's just a really average neck. I'm putting it in the con section because, after that 50s neck on the Epi, I realize that this one is just a neck. It's like the humbuckers in it. It's not really bad, but it's, also, not really good.
• The humbuckers in it. After I got it, I played 4 different guitars in, and ran them through the looper back to back so I could try to gauge the ones in this guitar. The LP has a Gibson Burstbucker 1/2 combo. The 339 has Gibson 57/57+ combo, the Epi 339 has an Epi Probucker 1/2 combo (Epi's version of Burstbucker 1/2) in it, and the PRS has a PRS 85/15 S combo in it. Admittedly, I seem to be partial to Burstbuckers, especially a BB1 in the neck position. Playing those 4 guitars, my bias was confirmed when the guitars were absolutely clean. The LP with BBs sounded best to my ear, followed by the Epi with PBs, then the Gibson with the 57s, and finally the PRS. However, once I introduced some drive and gain to the sound, if I'm being objective, they all started to sound the same, and I'm not sure I could really declare a winner. So the 85/15 S pickups may not really be a con. They just don't stand out. All that said, I, also, felt like they were a little hotter than the PAF-inspired Gibson/Epi pickups.

Overall Verdict:
After having this guitar for a month, the more I play it, the more I like it. I'm pretty certain that it will never be my favorite guitar, but it's solid enough that it has become one of 3 that sit out on the stand that I leave out to play. And it will probably stay there. I've had Gibsons that weren't this nice of a guitar. I've had Gibsons that were nicer. The same can be said of Epiphone and Fender. I, also, believe that it's noteworthy that my cons are more preferences and things that are average and not really things that are wrong with the guitar.

So the question I have to ask now is, knowing what I know after playing the guitar for a month, would I buy it again? Absolutely! This is a solid guitar. Bang for the buck, there's so much to like about this guitar. It plays really nicely and it doesn't sound bad. Truth is, if I didn't admittedly have a bias towards the BB-type pickup, as was evident when I introduced some drive in my little pickup test, I'd probably say it sounded really good. This is a nice enough guitar, even though it's out of the "budget" import line, as my first PRS it has impressed me enough that I wonder what their more expensive MIA line is like. If this one is any indication, those have to be killer guitars!

I bought my Epiphone 339 back when they first released them in 2011.  I missed that first run that delivered in the fall of 2011, so the one that I got was made in that second run.  That means that I had to wait 4 or 5 months to get mine.  I ordered it in November, and got it the end of March or first of April.  One change that they made between the first run and the second that I didn't see them announce anywhere was that the original 339s shipped with their Probucker pickups and the second run shipped with their Alnico Classic Pro pickups.  I had actually been looking forward to getting to try the Probuckers out, but the Alnico Classics sound good to my ear, so whatever.

Never gave it a whole lot of thought after that.  Like I said, I wasn't unhappy with the pickups it came with.  I had always heard that the Alnico Classics were Epi's version of Gibson's 57 Classics and the Probuckers were Epi's version of Gibson's Burstbuckers.  I had put a pair of Burstbuckers in an old Les Paul I had, and I really liked them.  Never really bonded with the guitar, but I thought the pickups sounded good.  I had a Gibson 335 for a while that had 57 Classics and I really liked them too. 

In my head, I always said I preferred the 57 Classics.  I'm not really sure why.  Honestly, I think I liked them better because that's what it seemed that most Gibsons I liked were getting when I started paying attention to that brand, and they were advertising them as being "like PAFs."  In the last few years, I've realized that they now seem to be putting Burstbuckers, 490s, MHS, and another pickup or two in guitars as much as they are the 57s.  When I saw that, I realized that several of those are also said to be "like PAFs."  Now, I must confess, I'm not really sure what a PAF sounds like, but being a good gear hound and sometimes cork-sniffer, I know that PAFs are the sound that everyone thinks they should have.  So, if it sounds like a PAF, that's the next best thing to actually having a PAF, right?

Now I'm just confused.  All these PAF-like sounding pickups, and they all seem to sound a little different to my ear.  What's the real PAF sound?  No clue.  At that point, I realized I had been sniffing a cork or two, and figured, I wasn't unhappy with the way that 339 played or sounded.  As well, from a similarity standpoint, I had the real 57 Classics in that 335, and, to my ear, they didn't really sound all that different from those Alnico Classics.  If I really sat and listened to them, I thought Epi version may not have been quite as clear and articulate on the low end, and they may not have been quite as harmonically rich when driven, but they sounded good.  Just playing at church on Sunday or at the local blues jam, and nobody was going to hear a difference in the two.  So there was no reason to change the Epi pickups.

Then last fall, I picked up that Epi LP Standard 50s (or whatever it's called).  I immediately bonded with that guitar.  Loved the neck!  Loved the sound!  And did I mention the neck?  I had been playing that 339 predominately for nearly 18 months when I got that LP, and the 339 suddenly found itself relegated to hanging on the wall.  One of the things I really liked about that LP were the pickups in it.  They seemed super clear and articulate, and sounded good clean or driven.  Maybe it was the guitars.  Maybe it was the pickups.  Maybe it was a bit of both.  Either way, it had the Probuckers in it, so I was once again questioning what the 339 would sound like with Probuckers instead of the Alnico Classics.

So I started looking for a set of them.  You could get them direct from Epiphone, but they were (1) $150 a set, and (2) out of stock.  So Reverb was my option since I don't like eBay.  Someone from Thailand was selling them starting at $50 a set with a wiring harness.  That's a good deal, right?  Seemed super sketch to me, so I passed on them.  I'd see others showing up here and there, but they were running about $50 a piece (or more).  I found a pair that someone pulled out of a new Epiphone where they were asking $70 for the pair.  I messaged them for pics of the back of the pickups, and, when he sent them, it turned out they were actually the Alnico Classics like I already had.  I let him know what he actually had, and that I'd pass since they weren't the ones I wanted.  His ad hasn't changed.  So be careful if you come across that ad; they're not actually Probuckers. 

The next afternoon, I noticed someone had posted a set of Probuckers for a super price.  Looking at the ad, the pics all looked right, so I was convinced they were real.  According to the ad, the seller had just pulled them out of a new Epi LP Modern that they had gotten.  Pics looked right, and the story sounded legit.  Looked at the price again, and three other folks had already made offers on them and someone had them in their cart.  So, since the price was really good without asking for a deal, I pulled the trigger.  I will say that they are the Probucker 2 and 3 pickups where my LP has the Probucker 1 and 2.  

Finally got them swapped out, and the Alnico Classics are now sitting beside me on the desk.  What's the verdict on the 339 now that it has the Probuckers in it?  I like them better!  I think they have a clearer low end.  I'm not sure the difference in the Probucker 1 in the LP neck and the Probucker 2 that is in the LP bridge and the 339 neck, but I still like the Probucker 1 best of all.  To my ear it really sounds good.  Either way, again, to my ear, the Probuckers have a clearer low end and are just a bit more articulate than the Alnico Classics.  They also seem to be a little bit smoother and not quite as harsh when driven.  When turned up, they also don't sound as hot to me.  The Probucker 1 is easily my favorite, but the 2 and 3 I also like better than the Classics.  Granted, in a blindfolded side by side, the only one I think I could pick out of the mix would be the 1.  That is, if I could pick it out of a crowd.  But trying to be objective sitting in my quiet little music room, I believe that I hear a difference in the two types of pickups.

So, I have to say that I think the Probuckers are great pickups.  They're half the price of the Gibson Burstbuckers, and, to my ear, they're not that different.  Granted, I haven't A/Bed them at this point, but from what I remember of that pair I had, they're pretty close.  Given the chance, if I had another Epi with those quick connect ends, if it didn't have the Probuckers in it, I'd see about finding another pair.  I'm not sure that all the hype around the Probuckers isn't at least a little marketing, but, I think, they're well worth the money.  Like I already said, they're not the Gibson (or Duncan or Lollars), but they're close enough that nobody but us gear hounds are going to hear the difference.  Bang for your buck, especially if you get them used, I don't know that you're going to get anything better.