Back In Black

While PRS has been making its mark on the bolt-on market, we finally get a new Core model, the shapeshifting modern Eagle V. But is it really new?

- Dave Burrluck

Here’s a guitar we’ve been waiting for since early 2019 when Paul Reed Smith showed us the prototype at a dealer event in the UK. Technically, it has been available first as a cost-a-lot 2019 Private Stock limited run of 120, followed in 2020 by a 200-only Experience run and subsequent special dealer-order Wood Library versions. Now comes this new unlimited version, which we’d planned to feature in our previous issue until the Myles Kennedy signature and NF 53 were suddenly launched. PRS has certainly been busy.

PRS MODERN EAGLE V £4,599

CONTACT PRS Europe PHONE [phone] WEB www.prsguitars.com

Replacing the outgoing 509, the new Modern Eagle V is a rare addition to the main Core line, the top tier of PRS’s USA set-neck production. Obviously, it’s the fifth iteration of the Modern Eagle model, which dates back to 2004; version four, the Quatro, launched in 2010 and lasted just a couple of years in the catalogue. Our V version has two humbuckers and additional middle-placed single coil. Though it’s not the first three-pickup ME – the celebratory 25th Anniversary ME II from 2010 featured three Narrowfield mini-humbuckers – it does boast 17 different sounds.