PRS SE NF53
When I had the chance to review the made in Maryland Myles Kennedy derivant of the NF53, I struggled to find anything about to like. One of the immediate flaws was that it was priced higher than a US made Silver Sky, for what remains in my perspective a far lesser instrument. I did say at the time, that an SE version was both inevitable and necessary.
Ok, it’s here.
Let me be clear. I have owned over thirty different PRS guitars, all but three of them being USA builds. Some didn’t stick but that number is very small indeed. In recent years, I’ve gone from meh to impressed with the SE family and now have three different SE models that to me are superlative instruments that I would hang onto getting rid of certain Fenders and Gibsons before the SE models. My guitars, my money, my choice, you are likely different.
This article is going to be short because what we have here is a very well executed, considerably less expensive guitar that is still meh.
The NF53 Idea
The US NF53 is built to be like Mr. Smith’s 1953 Fender Telecaster. He said so. It looks vaguely Tele-esque. Never having played a real 1953, I cannot comment on the feel of the neck, but my mid fifties Fender Japan Telecaster has a very prominent V neck that I really like, but that bears no resemblance to the neck on either NF53 variant.
The original Telecaster had Leo’s single coil pickups. Not particularly powerful in output, but sounding like only a single coil Telecaster sounds. There is a sound that the massively simplistic Telecaster brings that no other guitar can achieve. Mr. Smith is also I think incredibly skilled in pickup design, although he tends to build darker pickups than I would normally like, had I the skill to do my own. The Narrowfield pickups in the NF52 family are not single coils. They are humbuckers. They sound like humbuckers, some say like the smaller humbuckers first built by Epiphone. I had those in an old and long gone Les Paul Deluxe and I don’t think that the Narrowfields sound like those, but auditory memory is a fleeting thing. What they do not sound like is anything like a Telecaster.
The original Telecaster bridge is known for being near impossible to intonate. Three uncompensated saddles. Do your best. It’s 2025 and now we have three compensated saddles. No rear load, this is a top load bridge only. You either like that or you don’t and whatever you choose, you’re right. Excellent build and you won’t shred your hand on any exposed grub screws.
One volume, one tone and a three way switch. Neck only, neck and bridge or bridge only. Simple very basic design. It works. But it’s not a Telecaster.
One space that PRS Guitars is well known for are their fretboard inlays. According to Mr. Smith, the original expectation was that the now ubiquitous “birds” would be a special order and see limited demand. Indeed the original moon inlays are now pretty darn hard to find, where the moon crescent mimics that headstock curve. The inlays on the SE NF53 are typically gorgeous..
The Challenge Not Met
And that is part of the problem. PRS would have been better to make this less like a poor Telecaster copy and do their own thing. While the Silver Sky is different, it is still very much a Strat like object. The NF53 looks like a Telecaster but isn’t one in any way that matters from my perspective.
The SE NF53 is a three piece slab body. With a top loader, body resonance doesn’t get to make as significant a contribution and even with decent wood, you would expect the guitar to be thin sounding. Nope. It’s like week old meat loaf. Thick but not nicely warm. More like hard and stale. Played acoustically it achieves a gold star in underwhelming. Not a guitar that I would ever just pick up and play unplugged for an hour.
Plugged in, I don’t like the sound. I really have to EQ up the highs to get a sound that is tolerable. Of course as soon as you kick in any drive, any subtleties of the pickups are gone so all the gaff about how they sound good overdriven is just that. Lipstick. On a pig. But you may love it.
I don’t mind a heavier or thicker neck. Which is good, because this neck is like a 2”x3” both too deep and such a heavy C as to be uncomfortable even with XL hands, but shorter fingers.
Fit and finish is excellent in general, but the fretwork on the SE model was not as good as other SE guitars that I have experienced. A lot like the US NF53 in fact. Easily fixable and more tolerable at this price point than at well over $3K here in Canuckistan for the US build.
The nut was cut just fine, and the factory action was PRS expected, with a bit of relief in the neck plus string height easily tweaked to my preference. I’ll save you the live tedium of a measurement chart. In truth, I was so bored, I couldn’t be bothered to get out the measurement tools.
The pickups are hotter than single coils as one would expect. The neck is decent into a Deluxe Reverb, but I didn’t care for the bridge there. I preferred a Twin Reverb because I was seeking that Tele spark. Didn’t get there but it was better with the Twin.
The Emperor’s F’Ugly Wardrobe
When the US version came out in the finish called doghair that I at my most charitable call dogshit, I wondered if PRS was getting government funding to employ the most incompetent colourists and designers, in counterpart to how awesome their usual finish work is. The SE NF53 doesn’t have the surface texture of the US model, in my mind a great step up but it is still one of the ugliest looking finishes that I have ever seen. I would actually take fake aging over this crapfest. PRS offers three colours. Black Dogshit, White Dogshit and Pearl White. For those that do buy one, I assume that all with eyes and any functional braincells will order the Pearl White. If I ran a guitar shop and someone wanted one of the dogshit colours, I’d want the money up front, no refunds.
Interestingly, the smart folks at Sweetwater have a unique colour for themselves, a rich and deep purple with no critter hair evident. It’s so much better looking, even on that ugly block body carve that has none of the curved grace of an actual Telecaster.
Wrapping Up
So let’s see. It’s an interpretation of a 1953 Telecaster that fails on all counts. The neck is like a supporting stud. The pickups sound like mud. The stock finishes would need to improve massively to attain the level of horrible. And here it sells for $1399 CAD MAP. If I wanted to recommend a far superior Telecaster shaped object, I would get a Sire T7 at $1129 CAD MAP that is an awesome instrument, or a Fender Player II at $1189 CAD MAP also superb. Frankly, it is my opinion that I could buy a Squier Classic Vibe ‘50s Telecaster for $639 CAD MAP and be well ahead of the game over the SE NF53. Sorry PRS, I call them as I play them and this one fails to launch.
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