PRS SE Hollowbody Standard vs II: What’s the difference?

I would not say that one of these guitars is better than the other. The only discernable difference between the two is the tonewood used for the top piece and the thickness/construction of the laminate. Here's how it breaks down:

• SE Hollowbody II top: 5-ply laminate figured Maple
• SE Hollowbody Standard top: 3-ply laminate Mahogany

The Maple top has a dampening effect and is overall less intense. In the Hollowbody II, notes decay quicker and might sound a little brighter, though the EQ difference will be really subtle (see the demo video below). On the Hollowbody Standard, the Mahogany top is punchier with more sustain. 

But even this is a small style difference at best. Figured Maple is more expensive - and we'd rather have 5-ply than 3-ply - but it's not a big enough difference to us to be interested in the added expense (see pricing tables below).

Body tonewood for both is Mahogany, while pickups, hardware, body shape, and measurements are all exactly the same.

PRS SE Hollowbody II VS SE Hollowbody Standard

Use this comparison tool to see the SE Hollowbody II and Standard side by side. If you want to add additional guitars to the table, launch the search bar below and you can search our database for other electrics.

Updated pricing for both guitars

Price accurate as of Tue, May 30th, 2023.

Price from multiple vendors

Price alert tool (based on lowest price overall from all vendors listed)

Price history chart (based on lowest price overall from all vendors listed)

Tone Comparison of Both Guitars

It's extremely difficult to hear a significant difference between these guitars. We thought the Standard sounded slightly darker, especially with a clean tone, which would make sense given the Mahogany top. But even then, the II seemed pretty mellow and rich. We'd have to do some ridiculous hair-splitting to discern much of a difference.

Detailed Comparison Table

As we've already pointed out, the only difference on the spec sheet is going to be the top laminate piece. We'll discuss more about the tonewood implications below.

More about the tonewood difference

When you're dealing with laminate the more ply layers you have, the better. Laminate is made by essentially gluing thin layers of wood together, forming a single piece of wood. Ironically, thinner pieces of wood - glued together - are more stable than thick pieces. As wood pieces thicken, it becomes more susceptible to expanding and contracting or taking on moisture. 

So what you want is more layers of thinner wood, which will offer more stability and a stronger guitar top.

There's also the consideration that figured Maple is simply a better quality wood than Mahogany, plain and simple.

Having said this, it's clear why the Hollowbody II is more expensive than the Standard.

Why are the pickups the same?

PRS has their own pickup line and seldom uses third party pickup builders. For this reason, they typically use the same humbucker set for multiple guitars within a similar price range. With both these SE Hollowbody guitars, they use the PRS 58/15 "S" humbucker set.

If they had used different pickups in one of these guitars, it would make a bigger dent in the price and a bigger difference in tone. But with the same pickups, it's very difficult to distinguish much of an audible difference between the two.

So it's clear that PRS intended to use the same humbuckers to maintain the style they envisioned for the SE Hollowbody series.

In other words:

It wasn't broke, so they didn't fix it.

Which one is the better value?

We like the 5-ply top and the figured Maple in the Hollowbody II. On paper, that's the better guitar for that difference alone.

However:

There is so little discernable difference in sound quality or how the guitar plays that we prefer saving the $200 (again, check the pricing section) and just going with the Standard.

Conclusion

It's odd that PRS would release a different version entirely after the SE Hollowbody Standard instead of just making a yearly upgrade to it. Guitar manufacturers typically make additional models with more distinctions and not just a single feature. That said, we don't mind either of these guitars.

They're essentially the same.

If you disagree or have some experience to share - maybe some questions to ask - we can chat in the comments section below.

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