PRS S2 STANDARD 24 SATIN & S2 VELA SATIN
As PRS’s more affordable USA-made S2 line moves into its second decade, the series gets a revamp with – at last – USA-made pickups and electronics. What took so long?
PRS S2 STANDARD 24 SATIN & VELA SATIN £1,925 & £1,999
CONTACT PRS Europe PHONE 01223 874301 WEB www.prsguitars.com
For its first 16 years of productionguitar making, PRS only made its instruments in the USA. When the company finally began to offer the ‘offshore’ Korean-made SE models –now made in Indonesia –it gave the brand a new, much lower price point but also created a large hole, price wise, in between. From its launch in 2013, the USA S2 line aimed to fill that gap: the essence of PRS, still built alongside the all-singing, all-dancing Core level in Maryland.
The thing is, to achieve the much lower price point, not only was it necessary to streamline and simplify the build process, but the S2 guitars still used pretty much the same hardware, pickups and electronics that feature on those offshore-made SE guitars, which, as we reported back in issue 510, now kick off at £499. For some, that was an uneasy mix.
However, last year’s 10th Anniversary S2 models –the limited-edition Custom 24 and McCarty 594 –signalled an impending switch to USA-made pickups. Now for 2024, the entire S2 line uses USA pickups and electrics. However, it’s more of a refresh: aside from those USA components, the range stays exactly the same with a couple of minor specification changes.
As before, the 2024 S2 line –which all feature glued-in (not bolt-on) necks –kicks off with a quartet of the far-from-posh satin-finished models: the Standard 22 and Vela Semi-Hollow, plus the two models we
