SOLD ///// PRS 305 25th Anniversary Limited Edition

WindmillGuitars

This 25th Anniversary Edition PRS 305 Electric Guitar was a limited production run of only 305 guitars. Based on the PRS 513 the guitar is armed with 3 PRS proprietary single-coil pickups to deliver 5 classic sounds.

PRS 25th Anniversary appointments include shadow bird inlays and an anniversary headstock eagle. Other appointments include an alder body, maple neck and 25-1/2" scale length. The 305 guitar's warm clear bite offers single-coil tones unlike any other PRS guitar. 

FEATURES 
* Carved alder body 
* Rock maple neck 
* 25-1/2" scale 
* Standard neck shape 
* R0sewood fretboard 
* 22 frets 
* 25th Anniversary shadow birds 
* Eagle headstock inlay 
* 305 truss rod cover 
* PRS 14:1 Phase II low-mass locking tuners 
* 513 bridge single-coil pickup 
* 513 middle single-coil pickup 
* 513 neck single-coil pickup 
* PRS-designed tremolo bridge 
* Volume and tone control with 5-way blade pickup selector 


On paper, the 305 looks like a simplified version of the 513 (launched 2004). The five single-coils are trimmed to three, with a single five-way pickup selector, and the scale length is increased to a full 648mm (25.5-inches, the same as a Fender Stratocaster) over the 513's 641mm (25.25-inches). For context, most PRS guitars are 634mm (25-inches). 

The body is alder, slightly thicker than standard, joined to a maple neck in a different manner from standard PRS guitars. Under the neck heel, the body sticks out to 'grab' more of the neck. This is a feature Smith conceived to increase the guitar's low end. 

Other changes to narrow the gap between PRS's usual recipe and that of Fender include the use of 250k volume and tone controls and a 0.05 microfarad capacitor. 

Like the neck joint, the 305 uses another of the 513's subtle features: a compensated nut. PRS has always used a compensated nut - the nut is moved slightly closer to the first-fret position to improve lower position intonation - but the 513 was the first to advertise the fact. Similarly here, its front edge is angled slightly closer to the first fret on the bass side to tweak the tuning further. 

Sounds 
Imagine a good Custom Shop Strat with increased low-end colour, smoother but still biting highs and a little added mid-range fatness. Then add in superb sustain, immaculate intonation and playability and an excellent in-tune vibrato system and you have a real 'supercar' version of Fender's finest. 

Compared to the girth of a Singlecut, the 305 cuts, but is rarely ear-wearing. It has much of a good Strat's explosive twang on clean, reverbed amp tones, but whereas a Strat isn't always what you want for higher gained sounds, the 305 is more than happy. 

The guitar cleans up very nicely (the volume control has PRS's typical treble bleed capacitor) and the tone control is, as ever, super smooth if you need to tame the highs. There's no lack of percussive bounce from the feel either. 

Built to the company's usual ultra-high standards this 25th Anniversary guitar certainly dishes-up a different flavour, or provides a different coloured crayon as Paul Reed Smith would have it. 

The 305 doesn't just lean into the Fender camp, it sits right in front of the fire: an elite-level version of Fender's finest that will, by its design, not only give PRS fans that 'missing' sound but might also bring in players who like the idea of PRS, but need single-coil tones. 

"The 305 has big, fat, open but a little darker single-coils," Paul Reed Smith tells us, summing up. "I've never been able to make a humbucker that sounded exactly like a single-coil… and this is interesting, some of the humbuckers on old '59 Les Pauls were so bright they almost sounded like single-coils - we don't make pickups that bright."

£1500

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ellwood

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Jez6345789

Very nice

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