Paul Reed Smith guitars are unmistakable in appearance and feel. From classics models such as the PRS Custom 22, all the way to the metal beast Holcomb SE, PRS seems to have something amazing for just about every type of guitarist. Today, we’ll be looking at a lesser known model, the S2 Mira, and see what we’ve been missing out on!

We’ll start with the specs!

  • Solid Mahogany Body
  • Mahogany Neck
  • Dot Inlays
  • PRS Pattern Regular Neck Profile
  • PRS Low Mass Locking Tuners
  • PRS Adjustable Stoptail Bridge
  • 22 Frets
  • 25” Scale Length
  • Nickel Hardware
  • Mira Humbuckers
  • Volume and Push-Pull Tone Control with 3-Way Blade Switch

The PRS Mira aesthetic is clearly shooting for a vintage style. It comes in a bunch of great classic guitar finishes (all of which look stunning), such as Metallic Gold or Green, Vintage White, Tobacco Sunburst, Cherry, and Black.  The specially designed pickguard is unique to the Mira and has a really neat look to it that separates it from other guitars.

The guitar is shaped very similarly to the Custom models, but without the carved top and some added contours. The contours of the guitar are asymmetrical. The top is heavily contoured to add some right-hand comfort when in a resting or palm muting position. The bottom is lightly contoured and makes for a nicely shaped body.

All of the PRS hardware on the S2 line is really great. I’ve never really had an issue with the stock locking tuners or the bridge hardware. The Stoptail on the Mira is very similar to the one found on the Core-Line McCarty Models and is very comfortable to rest your picking hand on.

Overall, the aesthetic reminds me of a lot of the Custom series. You won’t get the fancy figured top or the tremolo bridge, but you do get a really nice, minimal, vintage-inspired look that serves this guitar well.

PRS S2 Mira

Tone:

The all-Mahogany guitar offers up some really warm, rounded acoustic sounds with an impressive amount of sustain.

The Mira pickups are super sweet, harmonically rich, vintage-style humbuckers. They are quite present in the high end and help to balance out the low-heavy sounds of the Mahogany body. The stand-out features of these humbuckers are the impressive amount of clarity. It doesn’t matter how big or how dissonant the chord, every note shines through.

Something quite nice about this guitar is how responsive the volume knob is. I don’t find myself using it very often these days, but the volume knob on this guitar really seemed to give me a variety of tones. Even when exposed to a saturated amp tone, turning down the pickup volume a bit transformed it to a cleaner, chimy sound.

While this guitar ultimately shined for clean and low gain tones, the pickups did have just enough bite to happily produce hard rock tones in the realm of Van Halen and the like. I’d even dare say that they would do well in certain metal applications. These certainly aren’t made for modern metal tones, but some moderately aggressive sounds are possible.

If you want a PRS for metal, though, you’re probably looking in the wrong place. Go take a gander at the PRS Holcomb SE for one of my personal favorite guitars for modern metal.

Build Quality:

Honestly, I don’t even feel like writing this part because every S2 review seems to be obnoxiously consistent in this category…Here we go anyway

The fact that the S2s are made in the same Maryland factory as the super high-end PRS Core models should speak for itself. The S2s are insanely awesome guitars for the money and the things you miss out on from these guitars are mostly aesthetic features (such as the lack of figured top, finish options, inlay options, non-recessed control plates, etc.).

The stand out features in quality are the wonderfully executed satin finish, the inspiring feel of the neck, and the outstanding fretwork.

The overall quality is really insanely good on the S2 line and I have zero complaints for the cost of this guitar.

Final Verdict:

The S2 Mira is a guitar that surprised me. It has a unique look that I didn’t really appreciate at first, but then grew on me. It’s not flashy and it certainly doesn’t stand out in a crowd of figured tops.

Where it might lack in over-the-top features, it delivers in impressive quality, amazing and versatile tone, and a very comfortable playing guitar.

Even if not the S2 Mira, I’d really say every guitarist looking for a studio workhorse who isn’t looking to shell out $2000+ on a PRS Custom should really consider an S2 model. These guitars are top notch and versatile.

9-10-7

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This article was written by Zac Buras, our editor located in Louisiana.

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