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So I only recently got turned on to Paul Reed Smith guitars when I purchased a used DGT model. I liked it so much I decided to look for a brand new one to be a number 2.I have been playing professionally for over 20 years. All styles, studio, live and session work. I have habitually used Les Pauls and Telecasters exclusively for as long as I have played guitar. But after falling in love with the DGT i purchased, I really appreciate the stability, quality, precise intonation, and playability of PRS guitars. So I came across this 509 model...Let me just say there is almost nothing this guitar cannot do. As far as the pickups go, the neck and bridge are identical. In humbucker position they are clear, articulate and full. the bridge is airy and bright with medium output and just sounds perfect clean, driven, and dirty. The neck is warm and round articulate, but not in an extreme way. It is not muddy at all. Clean is excellent, driven is a little boomy, but dirty it has all those beautiful violin-esque tones. With the coils tapped, the bridge is much like a strat and not like a tele, roll off the tone a bit and presto... Magic. The neck is like a nice 50's strat when coil tapped and with a little roll off of the tone it sounds much like a tele. The in-between positions on the 5-way yield nice fat phasey tones with humbuckers and Strat delight when the coils are tapped. Since the taps are available for the neck and bridge individually there are 9 tonal options at your disposal that are all 100% usable. Things to note:The toggles make switching the taps on and off very convenient for on stage playing.Master volume and tone control keep adjustments simple and easy.Trem is rock solid and locking tuners are fantastic.I play every style of music and can go from Sinatra to earth wind and fire, right up to metallica in the same gig. And amazingly I can do it all on this one guitar. If I could only bring one guitar in the vault to a fly gig it would absolutely be this one. It blows me away night after night how nice of an instrument this is. I have been gigging it for the last three months and in that time I rarely pull either of the other 2 out of the vault... For a gear head, tone junkie, grass could always be greener kind of guy thats saying something. Let me also say, I have been playing almost 30 years (i am 42) and I have never purchased and been satisfied with a "brand new" guitar. I always returned them. I love this instrument. And I love zZounds for making it possible to own it while I pay for it. Thanks.

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