FIRST PLAY
PRS guitars are very expensive and loaded with bling, right? Not this one. The start-up PRS gets a 24-08 makeover that should interest any hard-working player
Earlier this year PRS released the Indonesian-made SE Silver Sky in trumpet-waving and near internetbreaking style. Another pair of releases went under the radar: the USA-made S2 Custom 24-08 and this little gem, the SE Standard 24-08, which is £30 shy of being the lowest-priced electric guitar currently offered by PRS.
The Standard goes right back to the birth of PRS Guitars in 1985, although at that time it was simply called the PRS Guitar: an all-mahogany version of the maple-topped Custom. It became known as the Standard from 1987 and was always less expensive than the Custom – and today it remains the most affordable model in both the S2 and SE ranges, though it’s no longer a top-deck Core model.
The ‘24’ suffix was added from 1994 when 22-fret versions of the original 24-fret guitars were offered. The ‘08’ part of the name refers to the number of humbucking and single-coil sounds you can get from the two pickups, and this started with the Corelevel Custom 24-08 that was originally released as a 50-piece-only limited run at PRS’s 2016 in-house Experience event; it became a standard Core model in late 2017.
The SE Custom 24-08 was introduced in 2021 and now has a lofty suggested retail price of £959; our Standard version trims that by 35 per cent, over £300.
This new Standard 24-08 is pretty much identical to the current SE Standard (save for its expanded switching, which we’ll get to in a while), which was refreshed to this specification back in 2018. Offered in just two colours, the very workingman Tobacco Sunburst and this deep translucent blue, it’s pretty much as far as you can get from PRS’s blingy style. As ever with the Standards, without that figured maple top your eyes are drawn to the form – and although the new ‘shallow violin’ top carve here is a lot shallower than PRS’s Core models, with an overall depth of 45mm, it remains rather classy. The SE Standards have a bound top edge that’s cream coloured plastic, and while you can see a little of the wood grain through the top and back finish – whi
