PRS S2 Custom 24 pickup upgrade

[Jeffw5555]

I have been curious about PRS for quite some time, and I certainly don't need another guitar (have 22 right now...) so today I bought a used S2 24.

Based on a lot of threads, it seems the pickups might be a weak spot, so the question is what pickups would be a good upgrade? I play mostly prog, some metal, but don't need a heavy sounding pickup.

Suggestions?

 

[Morgan Ziegler]

I'd suggest you receive the guitar, plug it in, and see how it sounds! Based on that -- you can determine what you need more / less of and help us narrow down what you're looking for.

I believe you're about to receive a thread of everyone's favorite humbuckers they've ever played.

 

[Guitarmoog]

I have a theory that one of the reasons many people have an adverse reaction to the 85/15s pickups in S2s and SEs is actually not the pickup, but the treble bleed that comes as standard on the volume pot.

I have a Mira SE with them, and as with my CE24, I clipped the treble bleed cap to see what the effect was. I found that the quite pronounced high top-end presence that was a very noticeable and individual facet of them was hugely reduced with the cap clipped even with the volume pot on full, and they settled down into sounding just like decent slightly hot HBs such as you’d expect on an SG or similar. It kind of de-PRSes or de- hi-fis them.

So, as Morgan says, give them a good try first, but also try them with and without the treble bleed cap as it alters them significantly.

As it happens, I went back on forth on which I preferred, and eventually ended up installing a mini switch for the treble bleed cap so I didn’t have to choose.