When and WHY did PRS go to that VERY LARGE BULKY uncomfortable neck heel?
A. 1995 — PRS went to the new longer neck heel to improve the strength and tone of the guitar. When you reduce the length of the neck you increase the strength by its cube (x3). When you increase the thickness you increase the strength by its square (x2). The playability of the guitar is opinion based since we have found no problems with this design in reaching notes at the upper register. Comments from Ed Roman on Answer #1 I believe that answer to be ridiculous, the neck was already plenty strong, I have only seen one PRS neck break anywhere near the heel and it was a later model one. I suppose if you needlessly overbuild something just so you can say it’s better than the original because the old ones were in demand and the new ones weren’t. I suspect that the new automated plant required some type of flat spot on the neck so that a machine could easily grip the neck while it was being carved robotically. Paul told me while driving to a restaurant for lunch that the reason for the l
