Incase it will be useful for you, bolt-on necks have 1-2 more options that can be tried.

If the bolts are too tight or loose deadspot can happen, there's also the neck pocket angle as the material between the neck and body might have too much air gap if material is too thick. You might need a luthier for adjusting that as its a lot of work but the more parallel the neck to the body the better (always some angle is needed, the amounth depends on the guitars neck pocket height).

Thanks Mertay,

It's a glued in neck.

Cheers

OK, here is my email to PRS Europe and their latest reply. Thanks for most of the words Rammikin

Hello xxxx,

I’ve read through that paper. Basically reinforces my belief that I have an unacceptable amount of note decay particularly on the G string 16th fret. I think there's some confusion on this point. The paper is factual and correct. However, it does not purport to prove whether sustain irregularities exist in a guitar. It may be a small effect, but they do exist. That's a given. All resonant bodies, like guitars, do. That's the very definition of resonance. The purpose of the paper is a different topic: to investigate the source of that inevitable irregularity. I think the source of the confusion is the poor choice of the term "dead spot" in the paper. That misleads you into thinking they're talking about a prominent artifact when in fact it's often quite subtle.

I think there may be a misunderstanding here about the degree. The paper correctly states that some frequencies will be more resonant than others, there will also be frequencies that resonate less than average. But here's the thing: my recording and tests at the luthier’s show a far more pronounced effect than anything reported in the paper (or experienced by others I have spoken to). The use of the term "dead note" in the paper is probably an unfortunate choice of words, since it's referring to frequencies that have somewhat more or less sustain, not severe attenuation like I demonstrated in my recording. Nowhere in the paper does it say this phenomenon has "the effect of virtually cancelling out a particular note".

That paper addresses an interesting topic, but that topic is irrelevant here. The relevant issue is: does the guitar in question have excessive sustain irregularities? In other words, you’ve given me a paper to prove your point, but it doesn't do that at all.

I kind of get the feeling people are passing that paper around at PRS, but nobody is reading it.

Thank you for your attention regarding this matter, the paper was informative but irrelevant. I have a cheap and cheerful Peavey Falcon II Telecaster clone with a ply body that cost about £120 when I was a beginner and I’ve just played each note on the entire fretboard, open strings and harmonics and it doesn't display anything anywhere near as bad as this £650 PRS.

I have contacted the retailer I bought it from but as yet have had no reply. I assume he is on holiday as I didn’t send it to the general support I sent it to the manager.

Kind regards

Phil


Hi Phil,
I’m going to check out some more of our stock here to see if I can establish a definite pattern and, if I can, I will see if there are any tweaks I can do to improve matters. In the meantime if I can help you get things moving with your retailer please let me know.
Best regards
xxxx

I think he's starting to be a little bit more reasonable. I'm still not expecting anything but he seems willing to help me with the retailer.

Yeah give the guys e-mail when you contact the retailer, maybe they might figure something out together.

I played it tonight and it didn't seem as bad. Very weird

The retailer has contacted me and are arranging a free collection to their HQ tomorrow.

Let's see where that takes us.

What does "free collection to their HQ" mean?

they are sending a courier to pick up the guitar and take back to the shop


I can see it then going back to PRS for a replacement.

GuitarGuitar have five shops, this is going back to the main one where the big boss that I emailed works

Very good!

Applause!

Indeed Great to hear it's going back. At that price, it should resonate, play well, etc. It's odd they are passing around a paper at PRS that says all guitars behave this way.

Guitar has been picked up. Just been speaking via Facebook messenger to Ace, I told him who I had been dealing with at PRS Europe, turns out he's been doing Ace's guitars for fifteen years so he should know his stuff. Strange he tried to fob me off with that paper. It must just be on file under the heading, "If customer complains about..........., send them this, that will shut them up"

This post has been edited by Phil66: Jun 7 2016, 09:14 PM

Here's a thread on deadspots from TGP which includes comments from the might and very informative John Suhr
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php...adspot.1427313/

Thanks mate,

Is Husky John Suhr?

Cheers

Update:
Retailer is now sending it back to PRS Europe so they can check if it is within their parameters. To be honest, I can't see it being within their manufacturing tolerances and if it is it's shocking. Let's see what they say.

Thanks for everything folks

Still waiting for the Tech Manager at PRS Europe to assess the guitar. He has had it on the bench for three days so far.

On a similar note, I was in my luthiers shop today, he has had a pre owned PRS SE Tremonti in on a part/ex deal. It's a lovely guitar BUT, we tested the B notes on it. They too are shorter than the others but not to the same extent as mine, again the B on the G string is the worst but just about acceptable. The Ace guitar that I hae is based on the Tremonti because the Tremonti is Ace's favourite guitar (In American Paul Reed Smith version). Interesting eh?

Might be a hardware thing if its common like the truss-rod or something. This is the stuff companys must take serious if they want to build better products, I'm very curious as how things will resolve.

I played a Bernie Marsden PRS SE not long ago, checked a few notes and it didn't seem have that issue.

If you get chance again, go straight for the G string 16th fret, that seems to be the area. I have a couple of double cutaways and they don't seem to have any issues but I haven't really gone in deep with them. I will try this weekend.

Here is the latest email.

Hi Phil,
Apologies for the delay in resolving this – I’ve got the guitar on the bench at the moment and just wanted to check that it is meant to be in drop C tuning? Also the tremolo was angled back, is this intentional or do you want it floating?
Regarding tolerances. The main areas where close tolerances are involved are neck angle (to ensure that the correct action is achievable) and neck alignment (for obvious reasons). After that everything else comes together during build and assembly. The fret board is levelled so that it’s completely flat along its length; this is traditionally done with a straight edge and a long flat abrasive covered tool so you can see any dips where the abrasive doesn’t touch the wood. Then the frets are fitted and a similar procedure is followed to level them. As far as I know there are no measured tolerances involved, you just work the frets until they are level which shouldn’t require much work if the fret board is level in the first place. Obviously wood is less predictable than metal so we face the added complication of movement over time and under tension – this is one reason why we check all guitars here before we ship them but generally speaking most SE’s remain level fretted. If there has been any movement resulting in fret buzz or other problems we will level the frets again here. We also cut the nut slots as they get them close at the factory but they can benefit from more accurate cutting to improve feel, intonation, free movement and clear tone. This is done by eye and feel – we don’t use feeler gauges, we just rely on sight and touch. We also set the neck relief by eye and feel – in theory we work to a 0.010” gap between 7th fret and bottom of the string (when fretted at 1st and last fret). However we might give it slightly more if it improves the feel and tone for that particular guitar. Factory spec action is 1.5mm at the 12th fret, both sides; we tend to set the treble side a little lower, maybe 1.25mm, with an even gradient across the strings. This is measured by eye with a steel rule so it won’t be completely accurate and, again, there is some degree of feel involved.
I have never heard of any tolerances referred to with regards to sustain as, if a guitar is well built and set up, it will have good sustain on almost all fret positions. It will be assumed that one or two notes will have dead spots but the focus is on getting the tone as good as possible on the rest of the guitar while making it look and feel good and, at the same time, hitting a certain price point.
I’m going to check a load of stock Aces against yours, take the best of them if any are different, and see if I can get the best from it. So let me know about the tuning and tremolo angle and I will get on with it.
Best regards


Cheers

This post has been edited by Phil66: Jun 25 2016, 09:21 PM

The mid. paragraph seems like a copy/paste but whatever...just tell him to set it up standard+check the b dead spot (to understand your complaint) and find an ace guitar that doesn't have that problem.

Try keeping the e-mail short but definitive, I have a feeling he never dealt with such a serious deadspot problem before and not fully aware of it yet.