Greg Ferguson
Legend!
I have five PRS core, all purchased used but a couple were purchased from people who'd bought them through the same online dealer that offers a 50-point check and setup. Those particular ones were consistently set up poorly, well, horribly, with intonation problems and bad action. After I set them up I love how they feel and play.The set up on most of their high end, $4k+ guitars including Suhr’s, Tom Anderson’s, Fender Custom Shop, PRS, Friedman etc. were appalling, and I mean embarrassingly so. Actions were so inconsistent across them all it was hard to tell which came from the factory in that way (and if so, should fire the QC staff) and which ones had been “set up” by the store (who should be shown how to set up a guitar).
One of the PRS had to go back to the PRS factory later and I decided to see exactly how good their "from the factory" setups were, and had them include a setup in addition to the other work, and, I gotta say, they do a great job of setting up the guitars. I haven't had a reason to adjust it at all, and other people who I've let play it loved the action too.
So, my suspicion is that high-end guitars on the wall get screwed with by people who come in to play them, or someone breaks a string, and the tech at the store restrings it without paying attention to the factory string weights, and the end result is a guitar that doesn't reflect the factory's settings. Low-end and medium-range guitars often are set up with higher actions because the normal range of people looking at them strum too hard causing the strings to buzz and they won't buy the guitars, but the high-end makers are targeting people who know how to play and expect it to be done right, so they put in the time to make sure the instrument plays right before its shipped.