PRS DW CE 24 "Floyd" - Faded Blue Smokeburst Review

Perhaps the best PRS guitar you can buy

Have some free time now so I will review a couple of guitars from the amazing Sweetwater's guitar repertoire. This "PRS DW CE 24 "Floyd" Electric Guitar - Faded Blue Smokeburst" has no review here and comparing it with another great guitar ("Schecter C-1 FR SLS Elite - Antique Fade Burst"), which I bought from Sweetwater almost 7 months ago (9/18/2021), will be hopefully helpful… read more for you, potential buyers. First, let's start with a picture of both of them (see the attached photo). Both of them look great, play great and sound awesome! No wonder that I give 5 stars to both of them! The PRS DW uses CE24 bolt on platform with a satin-finished maple neck, which is more "shredery" than any PRS neck I played before – truly awesome! Its Mojotone DW Tomahawk pickups are very articulate and clear, and you can get useful single coil sounds in 2 out of the 5 pickup selector positions. In addition, there are two features that I particularly like. The volume/tone and pickup selector have been shifted backwards, which 1) allows plenty of room to work the tremolo and 2) practically eliminates the possibility of hitting the volume knob or the pickup selector with your picking/strumming fingers, which happens [at least to me :)] when the controls and pickup selector are placed annoyingly more forward – as, for example, in some Jackson guitars. The second feature that I like is the metal locking nut, which is a great improvement over the typical PRS proprietary synthetic nut. This synthetic nut is very slippery, which is probably the main reason why most PRS guitars stay in tune (when utilizing heavy bar or finger vibrato) better than practically any non-Floyd guitar I know of. However, the thinner strings eventually cut through this relatively soft synthetic nut and start to buzz when they are played open, because the clearance at first fret becomes insufficient. This happens invariably in all PRS guitars with this synthetic nut, sooner or later, if you play the guitar frequently. The metal locking nut completely eliminates this problem! In one sentence, the PRS DW CE 24 Floyd is the most comfortable and least problematic PRS I know of – simply fun and inspiring to play! The Schecter C-1 FR SLS Elite has, similar to the PRS DW, a very comfortable and fast playing neck, great-sounding pickups and, in addition, stainless steel frets which are more durable than nickel silver frets as well as more slippery than nickel silver frets, which facilitates smother bends and vibrato. The fact that it's almost twice cheaper than the PRS DW only underscores that it is one of the best "value-for-money" guitars you can buy! The only drawback I can think of is that players needing single-coil sounds might be disappointed, because only various great humbucking-type sounds are achievable (in contrast to the PRS DW). IN SUMMARY, if you need no "single-coilness" in your sonic repertoire, you are very likely to be extremely happy with the South Korea-made Schecter C-1 FR SLS Elite, because chances are good that you simply cannot easily buy a better guitar since its "build quality" is outstanding! However, if you are considering to buy a US-made PRS and you need single-coil sounds in your sonic repertoire, I do not think that there is a better PRS than the PRS DW CE 24 Floyd!

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