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PRS SE McCarty 594

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Electric Guitar

PRS SE McCarty 594

PRS · SE McCarty 594

Price: 233 EUR – 2.171 EUR

Price history 07.09.2026 19.09.2026
Cheapest seen Most expensive seen

Availability: 9/10 (Common)

PRS's SE take on the McCarty 594, a mahogany/maple design built around Paul Reed Smith's direct collaboration with former Gibson president Ted McCarty - named for its 24.594" scale length, a deliberate step down from PRS's usual 25" to land between Gibson and Fender territory. The PRS 2-Piece Bridge, with unplated brass saddles and an aluminum tailpiece transmitting string vibration directly into the body, is the construction detail owners and reviewers point to most often when explaining why this guitar reads as unusually resonant for its price class.

Where available? Go to the best price – 235 EUR About this instrument

About the PRS SE McCarty 594

The McCarty 594 traces back to Paul Reed Smith's direct collaboration with Ted McCarty, Gibson's former president, in the late 1980s - a relationship that shaped PRS's broader design philosophy before eventually producing a model named after its own scale length. At 24.594 inches, that scale sits deliberately between Gibson's 24.75" and Fender's 25.5", a middle-ground choice meant to combine vintage-style sustain with snappier attack. The SE version pairs a mahogany body with a maple top carved in a shallow, violin-style arch - visually quieter than PRS's deeply figured Core tops, in keeping with the SE line's role as an accessible route into Core-level design thinking rather than a figured-wood showcase. The standout construction detail is the PRS 2-Piece Bridge, in use on Core instruments since 2011: a zinc bridge with unplated brass saddles paired to an aluminum tailpiece on steel posts, built to transmit string vibration directly into the body for added resonance rather than damping it through extra hardware mass, the way a standard tune-o-matic and separate stop tailpiece can.

Where to buy

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Source: https://reverb.com/item/100046036-prs-prs-se-mccarty-594-2025-black-goldburst

Sound character of the PRS SE McCarty 594

The 58/15 LT "S" humbuckers cover ground from sparkling clean tones to soaring, sustained distortion, with the neck pickup carrying a warm character with vocal-leaning upper mids that stays clear even at reduced volume. The shorter-than-standard 24.594" scale length is a meaningful contributor here, splitting the difference between a longer scale's snap and a shorter scale's looser, warmer string tension, while the PRS 2-Piece Bridge's direct string-to-body coupling adds sustain and resonance reviewers single out as unusual for the price class.

Warm Resonant Full-bodied Vintage-voiced Smooth

What owners of the PRS SE McCarty 594 say

General sentiment runs strongly positive: a professional luthier examining the guitar found nothing to fault and praised its look, sound and playability, while another owner described it as among the most resonant guitars they'd played, calling it a clear step up from comparable singlecuts in its price range. Fit, finish and fretwork are repeatedly described as excellent for an SE-tier instrument, with guitars arriving essentially ready to play after tuning. That said, the praise isn't universal - some owners plan to upgrade the pots, wiring and tuners to close the remaining gap to the Core version, one reported tuning pegs slipping under open tunings, and the coil-split bridge tone is called thin by more than one player unless compensated for with amp gain. On value, the common refrain is that the roughly $1,000 step up to the S2-tier McCarty 594 is hard to justify for most players, which reads as an implicit vote of confidence in what the SE delivers for its price.

Playability & handling of the PRS SE McCarty 594

Reviewers of the closely related SE McCarty 594 Singlecut - which shares this model's neck, bridge and pickup specification and differs only in body outline - describe the factory setup as excellent straight out of the box, needing little beyond a tuning. The Pattern Vintage neck carve reads as slightly chunky and, paired with the 10" fingerboard radius, comfortable for extended playing, while medium-jumbo frets are smoothly finished at the edges. Players also note good strap balance and an ergonomic back contour, and credit the brass-saddled 2-Piece Bridge with sweet intonation and abundant sustain.

Recommended accessories & strings for the PRS SE McCarty 594

The push/pull tone controls split each 58/15 LT "S" humbucker into single-coil mode, giving access to Strat-adjacent clean tones without switching instruments - worth knowing for players who'd otherwise reach for a second guitar to cover both territories. Some owners report the coil-split bridge tone comes across thin unless the amp's gain is pushed or the tone control rolled back, so pairing with an amp that has headroom to spare is worth planning for rather than expecting the split tones to match a true single-coil guitar unassisted.

Technical data for the PRS SE McCarty 594

Type Double-cutaway solidbody electric guitar
Production PRS SE series, built by Cor-Tek in Indonesia
Body Mahogany body, maple top with shallow violin carve
Neck Mahogany, glued in (set neck), Pattern Vintage profile, 7/8 in. depth at 1st fret, 63/64 in. at 12th fret
Scale length 24.594 in.
Nut width 1 11/16 in.
Fingerboard Rosewood, bound, 10 in. radius, 22 frets, bird inlays
Pickups 2x PRS 58/15 LT "S" humbuckers
Controls Individual volume and push/pull tone (coil-split) per pickup, 3-way pickup selector
Bridge PRS 2-Piece Bridge: zinc bridge with unplated brass saddles, aluminum tailpiece, steel posts
Hardware Vintage-style tuners, nickel hardware

Price history for the PRS SE McCarty 594

Cheapest seen: 233 EUR  ·  Most expensive seen: 2.171 EUR

19.999 EUR233 EUR 07.09.2026 15.09.202616.09.202617.09.2026 19.09.2026
Cheapest seen Most expensive seen

The history of the PRS SE McCarty 594

The McCarty name honors Ted McCarty, Gibson's president during the late 1940s through 1966, with whom Paul Reed Smith consulted directly in the late 1980s - a collaboration that influenced PRS's broader approach to guitar design before producing a dedicated McCarty model line. The 594 variant takes its number from its 24.594" scale length, a deliberate in-between measurement chosen to split the difference between Gibson's shorter, warmer-leaning scale and Fender's longer, snappier one. PRS later extended the 594 concept into the SE line at Indonesian-built pricing, carrying over the same scale length and 2-Piece Bridge hardware philosophy that define the Core version, with a singlecut body variant added to the SE lineup alongside the original double-cutaway shape.

About PRS as a manufacturer

Background on the SE line's broader origin - its roots in Carlos Santana's direct request to Paul Reed Smith for an affordable instrument bearing his design DNA, and the acknowledged quality step below the hand-finished USA Core line - is documented elsewhere in this project's PRS SE research rather than repeated here.

Notable players & recordings featuring the PRS SE McCarty 594

No verified professional endorsement ties a specific touring artist to this exact SE model; the McCarty name itself honors guitar designer Ted McCarty rather than a performing artist.

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