School me on the Silver Sky....

jon

Fractal Fanatic
Just to make it clear, this is not about his music, I don't want some endless pointless bickering, polarizing thread

I'm genuinely interested in the silver sky and why so many players call it the perfect strat.....

I've gone through the specs and some threads and yes it looks great but what makes THIS guitar model so special? Why do so many players love this over other strats? Lots of guys here with one so before I think about getting one, what's your real world experience with it and why is it so highly rated?
 
IMO it's the pickups. The most common thing I hear with the Silver Sky is that every position is usable. The big selling point of his Fender sig was also the Big Dipper pickups which, if I remember correctly, were exclusive to his guitar.
 
As far as i know it´s pretty exactly based on two private Strats from 63 and 64. I also agree that the PUs are special and also based on these two 60s models, and sound very round and balanced without any harshness. The rest is also top notch with locking tuners, bone saddle, good trem...love to the detail
 
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It's more than the pickups but the pickups are definitely a big part of it. The neck is sublime: a little meat on a nice carve. The radius is accurate to those old Strats but isn't a struggle to play -- but it definitely contributes to how you play the guitar and attack it. The nut is cut well. The bridge is decked and uses bent steel saddles. The headstock 3x3 setup and break angle mean no string tree to bind on. It just comes together to make a very, very, very nice Strat.

It was the Strat I'd always been searching for.

Is it the Strat you've been search for? Impossible to know without trying one. The good news is they come with the PRS consistency -- you can pick up 10 Sliver Skys and they'll all be so identical in sound and feel that they're, for all intents and purposes, clones. No worries about QA there. So you can try a friend's Silver Sky and then go order your own and it'll be a predictable outcome.

It's not all perfect!

There's nothing in it to combat single coil noise; that's good and bad.

That single ply pickguard picks up static like crazy and I'll end up with crackles coming through when I run my hand across it. Fine when I'm playing live, but it's a PIA when I'm recording. I'm wiping it down with a dryer sheet every now and then to de-static it.

The early models (like mine) use a terrible plastic for the pickup selector switch and it cracked pretty easily. PRS sent me three before they hit on a plastic mix that was durable enough (and I'm not hard on my guitars).

The paint on the dials also faded really quickly (and I'm not that hard on my dials).

I also find the volume knob taper super steep. I'd prefer a more gradual taper. But I can live with it.

It comes with a lame gig bag. For the price, it should include a hardshell case. I ended up getting a bomb proof SKS for mine.
 
I had a PRS Silver Sky, one of the earlier ones, and I regret to this very day that I returned it within the 2 week return window.

My reasons were because I was pleasantly surprised to find that tonally it was very close to my fav Strat (which is heavily customised), so whilst I loved the Silver Sky I knew that having 2 very similar sounding guitars meant I would not be playing one as much, and at the time we needed the cash elsewhere.

Economically it made sense to send it back as it was not that different to my existing Strat, however I have hated myself for doing that to this very day! It was a beautiful guitar to play, it felt great in my hands, I even got to use it Live once before returning it and loved it.

These guitars are now a lot more expensive than when I bought it, and I still use my Strat a lot so I haven't been in a strong position to convince my wife that I can re-purchase 'the one that got away'. Seriously gutted I did that!
 
I love these, I am buying one soon, I know it.

BTW, I really dig Mayer's music, call me a lady, some of his playing is just terrific.
 
I liked it, a little too vintage feeling for my tastes, went with the Schecter Nick Johnston, which is the perfect Strat to me
 
Agree with Ian, particularly about the neck, which is a pleasure to hold (and bent strings never "fret out" on me, unlike with my Strat) and about the pathetic gig bag. It sounds great, but quite different from my Strat (which has Kinman Woodstocks)...I noticed this in particular one day when I was trying to play some JT-era U2 stuff and couldn't quite get the sound I wanted with the Silver Sky. Picked up the Strat and with all the same settings it was there immediately. Not saying one's better than the other, just clearly different, mostly to do with the pups I'd imagine.
 
These guitars are now a lot more expensive than when I bought it, and I still use my Strat a lot so I haven't been in a strong position to convince my wife that I can re-purchase 'the one that got away'. Seriously gutted I did that!
You did the right thing. Take some solace knowing that this'll probably be a long-lived model, made in large quantities AND you can rely on that PRS consistency to replace it with something that'll sound and play identical when the right time for you to own another one roles around.
 
Such an important point: what sounds great to someone, might not to someone else.
Yeah, I tried one when I was in strat-shopping mode, and didn't like it. Didn't sound completely strat-like to me, and I didn't care that much for the neck either. But I'm obviously a bozo, since everyone else loves them.

YMMV, for real.
 
I've played them a few times in GCs and really liked them. I finally ordered one and it came in about a week ago. Reallllly liking it. It should be noted that there have been some changes to the 2021 models--notably the pickups. If you didn't like them before, you might check again. Not saying they're night and day different, but I think they're a little lower output for one thing. Anyway, yeah I dig it.
 
I have one of the first year candy apple red ones, “Horizon” in John-speak. It’s a really good guitar, like a vintage Strat without the vintage price or foibles. 50s and 60s Strats don’t sound or play like current models, so I guess you could say a Strat doesn’t sound or play like a Strat, depending on which Strat you’re talking about! Like @iaresee said, in the end it’s all about what you like, and you could as easily be saying “I prefer modern Strats to vintage Strats” if the SS isn’t your cup of tea. No harm, and your own truth, in that.

Personally, it‘s the best Strat I’ve owned, and I’ve had a couple of good ones in amongst the mediocre others. I’m not a Strat player first, but when a Strat is needed, it’s the one I reach for first.

For many years now, the PRS core or artist series have been my main guitars. The quality, consistency, playability, and sound are always there. The SS being my first bolt-on series PRS, I’ve found no surprises in those four grading points!
 
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I struggled for years to find a Strat that had usable tones throughout PUP choices. It was always 'sounds great on these particular settings', and almost always had to dial in for 3/4 positions on a Strat, but fail miserably on 'one' of them. (Muddy on neck, or ice pick and thin on bridge.)

The Silver Sky solved all of that. Regardless of amp, it performed. Normally I don't bother with tone knobs, but on this guitar, I found tonal palettes that were so good dialing back (or down) various tone knobs that the Strat became an infinitely interesting instrument to play. As with any relationship, it takes some 'getting to know' each other before you can figure out what you want, and develop a connection to the instrument.

Second part: One of the most comfortable, well built, and easy to play instruments I've ever owned. It begs to be played. When shopping, I played roughly 3 of them at WildWood guitars, and EVERY one sounded and played great. I went with the Gold because, well, it's awesome.

Won't ever leave my house.

Ron
 
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