UPDATED ON 4/12/15

In this corner, wearing a maple cap veneer, from Korea… the PRS SE Custom 24!

And in this corner, from right here in the U S of A… the PRS S2 Custom 24!  Let the battle BEGIN!!!

OK, let me just skip to the conclusion – In my opinion, the one thing that all PRS guitars have in common, regardless of where they’re made is that they are good guitars.  Actually, they have something else in common – they’re overpriced.  Which guitar is better?  The American one.  Duh.  But not by much.

COST

As of 2015, if you’re not buying either guitar on sale, it’s about $700 for the Korean version and about $1,400 for the American version.  Because I am The Budget Guitarist, I have to say that I think these guitars would be a great deal at 50% that price.  I bought my PRS SE Custom 24 new for $399, which is close to half price.  And for $399, I don’t know if there’s anything that can touch it, in terms of wanting a dual humbucker solid body with a thin neck.  If I saw an S2 for $600, I’d snag it in a heartbeat.  But even used they’ll go for way more than that.  PRS, like Gibson and Bose, have a very valuable brand name that allows them to charge a premium price.  It is what it is.

FEEL

The American version feels more precise to me – better balance, more precise… by about 10%.  This is not a scientifically accurate percentage – it’s just me, playing both, and saying the American version plays like the Korean version but feels a little bit better.  Not twice as good, but a little bit.

SOUND

Child, please.  The pickups in the Korean version are… fair.  I replaced my bridge pickup with a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates, which made a definite improvement in the sound.  The American version comes with pickups made by PRS, and to my ears they sounded excellent.  (Editor’s note – No, they do NOT come with American pickups.  They come with pickups made in Korea, but they are still higher quality pickups than the SE model.)   I wouldn’t need to replace them.  Pickups aside, the American version seemed to have a slightly fuller sound and slightly more sustain.  How much more?  Maybe 10%.  Noticeable, but not huge.  And while this is a teeny minor detail in terms of sound, I did note that the tuners were excellent on the American version, and the tuners on the Korean version were decent, but I replaced them.

CONCLUSION

Of course the American version is better.  Some of the hardware is the same on both guitars, but everything else is better.  That’s why it costs more money.   But the American version costs twice as much as the Korean version, and it’s better, but not by much.  One could argue that to upgrade the tuners and both pickups on the Korean version you’re around $250 more.  So that’d be $950 vs. $1400.  I just don’t think the S2 is worth the extra money.  If money isn’t a problem, of course, then… you probably wouldn’t be looking at the low end American S2’s.  You’d probably be looking at the regular line, which runs around $3,000 and up.  It uses the wood from Noah’s Ark, apparently.