My Favourite PRS Guitar Costs Under £500
Published on 14 May 2025
PRS are a luxury brand, right?
From their stupefyingly gorgeous figured maple tops to their indecently detailed inlay work, PRS are pretty much the epitome of top end guitar bling. A bit like this one here:
Or are they?
Now, I’m not doubting their boujee boutique stuff - it is some of the best on the planet - but there’s a lot more to the PRS story, as I found out recently for myself.
Want to know more? Why did I buy the cheapest PRS guitar on the market? Why am I so impressed by it that I’m itching to tell people all about it? Keep reading and we’ll get there!
I should make it clear right now that guitarguitar didn’t specifically ask me to write this (they agreed that it was a worthwhile endeavour, though) nor did PRS ask me to write it. They didn’t give me the guitar or discount it or anything like that. I chose it myself and paid for it, just as you would do.
Contents
What Do I Like About the PRS SE CE24?
The Situation
- The best gigging guitars aren't always the most expensive guitars
- We all need an excuse to buy more guitars so here's mine
After a brief hiatus, I’ve been back out playing gigs of original material, and I felt like I needed a new guitar for the job. Any excuse, right?
In fact, I decided that my pride and joy Gibson Les Paul Custom was too precious to me to take out to some of the… less salubrious gigging establishments in this fair isle of ours. Even fully insured, I’d never be able to replace that specific guitar (there’s a lot of sentimental emotion attached to it), and my other guitars are all too specific to certain tasks, so I resolved to invest in a modest new gigging axe. It had to cover these following criteria:
- It had to be particularly affordable (It’s gonna get dinged up pretty quick)
- It had to be easily replaceable (so no super limited edition stuff)
- It had to handle humbucker tones and hopefully also single coil sounds
- It had to be at least reasonably good to play, given that I’m too spoiled in this job by playing lots of lovely guitars
- It had to look at least acceptable, hopefully even ‘quite cool’
- A whammy bar would be nice but not essential
- Did I mention that cheapness was important?
Those were the main points swimming in my head as I contemplated my next purchase. Now, before I get to the PRS, a little context is likely due…
My Guitar History
- Gigging guitarist with years of experience
- guitarguitar staff member who has played everything and has opinions
I’m approaching this article from a particular point of view. A guitarist of three decades’ experience, I’ve been a guitarguitar team member for almost two of those decades. I’ve had my hands on literally thousands of gobsmacking guitars from all of the brands you’d expect (that doesn’t mean I’ve owned them, I should stress!). I’ve personally spent more hours and more pounds on guitars than probably anybody I know, searching and searching for that perfect object that I secretly know probably doesn’t exist.
Crucially, I don’t have a particular brand preference at all: I like Rickenbackers as much as I like Jacksons, for completely different reasons. I’m down with Floyd Roses, headless guitars, Esquires, Juniors and Icemen (Icemans?). I like a Les Paul, but not to the exclusion of everything else.
I say all this because I want you to understand why this article exists. You need to know my experience with guitars in the past to fully get the context of me owning this pretty inexpensive PRS, and why I feel so compelled to talk about it.
I own a few guitars (not as many as you might think, and not always as fancy as you might reasonably expect) from the usual bigger brands, and they all serve their uses. Over the years, I’ve owned about 50 electric guitars in total, including stuff that Tom Waits would look down his nose at, and others that would almost pay for a cheap car.
One of my ex-guitars is relevant to today’s tale: a USA-made PRS CE22 20th Anniversary model from 2005. I don’t have it today, but it always stuck in my memory banks as being one of the most versatile, playable and ‘capable’ guitars I’d ever owned. Anything I threw at that PRS, it handled easily and with understated style, since it was a plain red Mahogany thing, not a bejewelled, flamed Private Stock heirloom piece.
That guitar impressed me and also made me somewhat gloss over the entire range of affordable PRS SE guitars for most of my days. My thinking was: why go backwards when I’ve enjoyed a ‘full fat’ American one?
Why Did I Pick the PRS?
- You can't argue with straight up quality and performance
- Utilitarian vibes suited my preferences
At the tail end of last year, my colleague Keiran and I put together an end-of-year YouTube video for all of the gear that made an impression on us in 2024. Alongside the four grand Billy Duffy White Falcon was the new bolt-on neck PRS SE CE24 Standard Satin.
This felt like a whole separate thing to us from the normal PRS situation (I’m now speaking on behalf of my colleague, which is obnoxious, I know): a degree removed from the set-neck, figured top PRS guitars that we all know. This was bare bones stuff, but done in such an elegant and confident manner that we were both quite intrigued to give it a go.
It made our list because neither of us could fathom how any company could build a guitar of this quality and performance, for the price they were asking. We were genuinely taken aback when we checked the price, and I immediately thought: ‘now everybody can have a nice guitar’, because it was quite far below the £500 price mark and blew everything else close to it out of the water.
It actually took me about two more months to realise that I needed one of these guitars myself. It fulfilled every criteria that I had set out in my wishlist, and though not the same as my old USA-made PRS, it was close enough for my sense memory to at least recall the feel and vibe of that great guitar.
Were there other contenders? Sure there were! That price point is probably the most hotly contested area of the guitar marketplace, and even Fender had just released their Indonesian Fender Standard range to get their heads in under the half-grand. I checked out loads of guitars, as I’m sure you all do, too. It’s half the fun! I won’t name the losers because that’s not fair, and those other contenders may well be a better choice for you, who knows?
So, the competition was tough, but the PRS won. I should say that I opted for the ‘new for 2025’ Satin Metallic Gold finish, which does actually punt the price a few quid over £500, but that’s a detail: you can buy several finishes for well under £500 and the guitar itself is the very same.
What Do I Like About the PRS SE CE24?
- Lots to love, even for picky players
- Smart decisions made about what to keep and what to lose
How did this relatively cheap guitar end up being such an exciting proposition to me? Here’s what I liked:
- All of the dimensions, measurements and calculations that have been R&D’d throughout 40 years of PRS guitars are used here, meaning all of the ideas, experiments and benefits are built in.
- The satin finish allows for more resonance in the wood.
- They included the bird inlays, which I think is pretty ass-kicking for this price point.
- Jumbo frets and a 10” fingerboard radius mean that everything feels nice and easy to achieve, playing-wise.
- The Wide Thin reck profile is second only to the Wide Fat neck profile for greatness in my book, so it's still one of the comfiest necks on the market.
- The coil-tapped tones do a better than expected job of ‘prettying up’ my seldom moments of clean-tone playing.
- The volume and tone controls are genuinely useful, something I don’t expect much these days.
- The bolt-on neck is my preference since it makes the instrument feel more utilitarian and solid for chucking around.
- It’s gold.
Some people could talk about missing the binding (I love binding actually, but I don’t miss it here) or needing fancier pickups (fair enough), but for the cash required to snare one of these, they are pretty much the bargain of the year.
My Final Take
- I love the guitar, with only a few reservations
- Genuinely worth a serious look for players of all levels
I’m genuinely surprised, impressed, enamoured and all kinds of other adjectives about this PRS. I’ve played gigs with it, and it sounds excellent. People come up and compliment how nice looking my gold guitar is, and none of them care a hoot about its non-US origin. It plays great, it hangs well on a strap, and it reacts well to my performance, in terms of dynamics, control knob changes and different playing techniques. It feels like it's supportive, rather than getting in the way and interfering with me. On stage, that’s huge.
That said, no sub-£500 is perfect (no £2k guitar is perfect either, let’s be real). I might be critical and say that the tuning stability is not amazing, but that’s also because I am one of those players who can’t leave a whammy bar alone if they see one. A replacement TUSQ nut hardly costs the earth, so that might be my next call.
Also, I feel that I don’t quite get the sustain or heat I want from the pickups sometimes. It’s a vintage-toned set of pickups, which is the best shout for attracting the masses, but man, I want more filth and grit sometimes!
The reverse of this coin is that the coil-tapped tones are better than they have any right to be. Both of these outcomes may be partly to do with the bolted-on neck, but variables are variables. I don’t feel the need to upgrade the pickups, let’s put it that way.
There’s genuinely so little to complain about - and so much to enthuse about - that I should just round it up and say this:
- I liked it enough to buy it.
- I gigged it and it was up to the task.
- I reach for it to noodle about with at home.
- It isn’t as good as the American one, but it is about 4-5 times cheaper, and not 4-5 times lesser of a guitar.
- If some horrific tea leaf makes off with it at a gig, I’ll be sad but I’ll realise that another can be had eventually for a non-terrifying cost, and it’ll be as good as the one I have now.
- I can play recklessly and not worry about ‘spoiling’ the guitar when I inevitably scratch it because it’s a working tool, not a museum piece.
This is how I feel about my new guitar. I wanted to pass these thoughts on to you today, because I feel like you might be like me and need something tough, reliable and versatile for taking out to gigs. You may also be like me and have presumptions on the SE stuff because it’s the bottom tier range of an otherwise pretty exclusive brand.
Maybe you’re smarter than I am and actually gave them a shot ages ago, in which case none of this will come as much of a surprise to you.
I am able to tell you honestly what I think about this guitar because I went and bought it just like you would. If you want the figured maple cap and so on, then you will pay more, which is fair. I’m fine with the ‘ready to wear’ satin finishes: in fact, I prefer it.
If you are hunting for a good gigging guitar, give these a try and let me know what you think. If you find something better for the cash, buy it and then tell me, because I seriously don’t think such a thing exists.
Click to Browse the Entire PRS SE Range
