PRS guitars are built with care & attention. Anything built in such a way has soul built in. They may be too refined for some but that is a matter of personal preference.

PRS guitars are just so good, we are truly blessed to play guitar in the real golden era of guitars which is right now thanks to people like Paul Reed Smith and his amazing team.

IMO it's because people romanticize vintage guitars and PRS was known for art piece like guitars.  The Strat and Les Pauls have a story behind them whereas PRS was known as the rich man's art guitar. It may have been the case at one point, but ironically I'd argue they are now the best value on the market for the working guitar player.  The SE line is absolutely killer.

I've never known anyone that could actually play well, ever say anything like this.

Much ❤ for that PRS semi hollow

I bought a "bashed up" first era (slash fret markers from 1998-2000) PRS SE models that the previous owner had fallen off a stage and landed on the guitar, cracking it at the neck to body joint so it wouldn't tune up to pitch without coming apart. He had later bashed it more as a Halloween costume prop. Price was cheap. I ended up steaming off the neck. When I contacted PRS before doing that work just to make sure the glue would respond to steam they said "we don't even make that repair"). I repaired the neck pocket and the neck heel and glued it all back together. Then dressed the frets and gave it a full setup. From there I drop-filled most of the Halloween damage but it still looks very relic. It's a fun guitar that works well.

The "no soul" also fits with "sterile" and "I didn't bond with it" - the reason comes down to the tone. The root cause of this is simply pickup setup, you need to use your ears and not "factory specs". I start by lowering both pickups, raise the bridge pickup until it balances volume output with the neck pickup. Then you can tilt each pickup for more/less bass/treble. Hendrix did this on his pickups so it's allowed for mere mortals. You can also adjust the screw pole heights like a mini EQ. Don't set them to compensate for equal distance from string size, set them for that tone you want. A staggered Strat neck pickup is the sound we hear in so many old songs that's what we expect/feel/need. I set my HH PRS neck pickup with a strat stagger pattern of poles, the bridge pickup I rotate so the screw poles are on the other bobbin (where a P90 crosses the strings) and raise the screw poles 3/16ths inch for that EVH what about love and ACDC tones that rattle around in my head. I have one HH where I converted the neck to a single coil and another where I have a push/pull neck where 'down' is Strat staggered pole single coil and 'up' is both bobbins in parallel Strat #4 tone (both have bridge pickups rotated). Remember that pickup adjustments are easily reversible so try that out before selling guitars or swapping pickups.

I'll find out on Tuesday

People projecting ‘soul’ onto objects seems clinically mad to me. An instrument can have history (or just a story) but the human does the work. PRS guitars have become so good and ubiquitous with ‘perfection’ for many people that we now need to find something wrong with them.

I think they don't inject their own twist to the sound as much. Since they're made so consistently, you don't have 10% that sound "special" and the rest not. They're ALL just accurately replicating the sound you put into them from your fingers. Since they don't have a weird quirk or flaw about certain ones that give you a different sound that is markedly different than another guitar, it has no soul. They just get out of the way and function perfectly so you can play. They also tend to just ring out true and long, without having to find "THE ONE" that will do it among hundreds that won't. If you put soul in, soul will come out. people  are calling the imperfections "soul". So I would take it as a compliment if I were Paul.   And while the heel is not the sleekest, they also don't impede your hand on the neck like most others of the same design do. So,  soul=random imperfections that can't be replicated reliably...and consistent repeatable quality=no soul, basically.

I think someone somewhere along the way decided they did not like PRS guitar and made that "don't have any soul" comment just to justify their position. There are a metric shit ton of artists playing PRS guitars in all genres of music. They will "chug" like anything else. They will sing like a bird too. I prefer PRS over all other brands because of the consistent quality.

If the guitar works as intended and is a proper value proposition, its good. I don't care about fee-fees, I care that my gear works as intended, and is not costing me a kidney.
Have no soul? yeah, guitars don't have a soul. This is just absurd at this point, people are angry that PRS has value guitars and can compete on the market.

That some brands have no “soul” and others do is nothing more than a manifestation of groupthink, confirmation bias, and abject douchbaggary. It’s such a load a laughable nonsense, brought on by the intoxicated delusion that one’s preferred aesthetic, and arbitrary notion of “vintage”
( do note the lack of an actual vintage when this concept is usually brought up) superiority, even in the absence of an old instrument. That an individual instrument does or does not speak to a player, is ABSOLUTELY and PERFECTLY reasonable. That one brand has “soul” and another doesn’t and never will, is side splittingly laughable; risible to the point of warranted ridicule

Yeah, 'they' used to say that about Yamahas, too and it's all bullshit. Most of the people who would say that don't even know how to play a guitar. Music journalists don't help, sometimes saying that 'they have a reputation for ...' !

While I’m not a PRS guy, it’s impossible for me to ignore that the man Paul Reed Smith has had such a positive impact on the musical instrument world. John Suhr too (and more).

I enjoyed the Brent Mason Signature; it had great pickups, but it was a boat anchor, so I sold it. I sold a Custom 22 and the Silver Sky. I had a few PRSs before finding the right one for me: a lightweight 22-fret with vintage pickups. It sounds great, and I know I will keep it for a very long time. There are many PRSs, and you need to find the one that speaks to you.

I’m a PRS fanboy and all my electrics right now are currently PRS - 2 USA made and 3 SE’s. I don’t know, I just connect with them. I feel like they solved problems I had growing up with my Squier Strat. I just feel at home on them. I love how they feel, look, and sound generally. I had a Fender USA strat for like ten years but the vast majority of the time I had it I was playing my CE24. I ended up selling the strat last year and don’t regret it. I intend to get some strat style guitars again in the future, but for now I’m good 😊.

The “no soul” comments I think create an impossible barrier to overcome because there is no commonly accepted definition as to what constitutes “soul”, so it essentially becomes an unfalsifiable position that PRS can never win. If you don’t like them generally I get that, no guitar is for everyone. But trying to make an objective statement about something that is completely subjective is stupid. At the end of the day it’s just personal preference informed by a person’s life experience. 🤷‍♂️

I think the main problem with PRS, and many others, is that they have no sonic identity. Great guitars, reliable, dependable, and entirely worthy, but how would you answer the question "What does a PRS sound like?", general though it may be? My experience is that they sound great, but generic. It has all the ingredients of a high quality guitar, because it is, it just doesn't have character.

Tough one, because I don't think they are guitars you can fault in any other way.

I struggled with PRS until I picked up a new CE24 Semi Hollow. I think when they switched to lacquer from poly it changed something about the guitars. The CE is now the guitar I reach for the most and it’s always the guitar that gets grabbed first for gigging. I had a 2017 one and never felt as bonded to it as I do this one and the only real difference is the paint

my mccarty s2 with suhr thornbuckers is probably the guitar that works 90% of the time in studio and live. People are always like “That guitar sounds good”