premier gear award

This $500 solidbody may look like a no-frills machine, but it’s a rock-solid player with features that elevate it above most guitars in its price category.

A flat-out bargain. Great vibrato system. Excellent fretwork. Fast playability.

Some midrange clutter in the output at wide-open volumes.

$499

PRS SE CE 24 Standard Satin
prsguitars.com

4.5
4.5
5
5

PRS makes some of the best affordable electric guitars in the world. They also have a talent for making those instruments look expensive. They achieve this trick thanks to quality control standards and practices that better most companies at the accessible end of the price spectrum. But PRS also built their reputation on immaculately crafted and very exclusive guitars. And once that association is burned into the collective consciousness of the guitar playing public—and you figure out a way to cop high-end design cues in down-market versions—well, you can make an inexpensive guitar seem very expensive, indeed.

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