[carydad]

Gotta love forums. Tops turns to pups, binding and everything else. May as well jump on the bandwagon. I own four gibsons (3lps). One plain top slash, one custom 1992-customized with a sick quilted top and a Flamed top GC-DC. All nice guitars. Especially the slash(plain top is my ugliest and best sounding gibson). My main gripe with Gibson is tops/tenon. Warren/Slash etc play flame tops or whatever and the public gets plain. Does PRS even make a plain top?

I have one guitar that has a nice flame to it (gibson would call it AAA), a longer neck tenon than a gibson long neck tenon and the same body mass. It's currently the only guitar I am playing...out of 12 custom/boutique/high end instruments. It was cheaper than most of them. How much would a long neck tenon LP cost with a AAA flame on it? Probably double what the SC245 cost me.

As to pups, I change them in all my guitars. Part of the hobby for me. Maybe not as fast as an INDY500 tire change, but pretty close. I like neck binding, but I don't really need it. An SC245 with neck binding would pretty much nail it for me. I considered a Kurt Wilson, basically a neck-through les paul. Still, it would be cheaper than a gibson.

From the quality standpoint, a local guitar shop got a plek machine...that I need to run my slash through. The only guitars they dont recommend pleking are PRS guitars. They just dont need it. I bought my slash sig and my sc245 from this place and trust the judgement of folks that have been in business 30+ years and dropped 240K on a plek machine.

The original question...PRS rocks the tops and doesnt kill 2K in price difference to get a nice top(R8/R9). 10 tops are too glam for me. I had a class5 quilt LP a few years back as well. I dont like stuff TOO flashy. My generic 245 kicks butt in the top department.