Paul Reed Smith Guitars Dragon 2000

October 1999, dark cherry burst, #41/50. The above review says it all in terms of inlay. Wide-fat neck, stop tailpiece.

It plays great and sounds great.

Killer action fit and finish.

I wouldn't gig with it. Its too awesome to leave home.

I have been happy with PRS in general.

I have been playing for around 10 years. I have other PRS's - semihollow custom 24, McCarty rosewood, Hollowbody II, and some old various fenders (strat, bronco, duosonic, mustang, musicmaster). Also a Martin 000-28 and Martin 00-15. If lost or stolen I would never be able to find another one. Only 50 were made and many are now in the hands of collectors overseas. Glad its still here in the USA where it was made. 2016 is the next Year of the Dragon, as was of course this 2000 Millenium Dragon. It is my #1 guitar. A work of art. And it plays so SWEET!!!

1999 No. 44. Colour, Teal. Tight, slightly wavy fiddleback maple top. Brazilian Rosewood one piece neck with dark Brazilian Rosewood fret board. Brazilian Rosewood Bird Inlays!
McCarty Layout, and body thickness. 2 x Specific Dragon 2000 humbuckers labeled underneath with handwritten paper stickers.
3D Dragon inlay on body made of "242 pieces of mastodon
ivory, rhodonite, agoya, coral, onyx, sugilite, chrysacola, red, green, and pink abalone and paua" (details given by PRS). No photograph has ever been able to show the Gold that's also been inlaid aroud the eye.
Body carved out to the shape of Dragon all over and then inlaid with shaped pieces - even around selector switch. Carefully taking the bridge pickup put, as I just had to do, one can see that the inlays are between 1/16 and 1/8 in thick. Some inlay pieces have deliberate lines around them while others are shaped into the next piece with absolutely no gap.
Quite light in weight considering the amout of stone and stuff on that body.
The PRS stop tail is almost perfectly intonated but this is of course at the expense of not having any area behind the bridge to rest your hand on when picking near to the bridge.

Wanting to have one really special instrument, I was prepared to buy this beast whatever it sounded like. However the combination of woods and pick ups make an instrument which can sound like a Martin played clean right up to a JEM with Evolutions at high gain.
I was so impressed that I bought a McCarty Brazilian for normal use. Comparing the two, the Dragon sounds marginally better acoustically while the pick ups are somewhere inbetween the normal and tapped sound of the McCarty - hence thier versatility. Played clean you can here every note in a chord. The bridge pick up is well defined without being course and the neck pick up seems to give a great hybrid of Strat and PAF tone. Take note other manufacturers, large and small - these pick ups might be voiced for neck and bridge but the difference is not intrusive like on many guitars, nor is there any apparent difference in output between the them. The Rosewood neck adds a dimension to the sound which is very difficult to describe. Slide a D shape chord down to the 14th fret and it's still ringing beautifully - or play any chord near the nut and enjoy wonderful timbres as it decays. It's almost like a Steinway grand. Part of the almost vintage like vibe could also be down to the lack of a finish on the neck.

Great wide fat neck. All aspects of set up perfect. Selector switch made scratching noise when touched but fixed by switch lubricant.

My only concern is that any Gold plating wears and scratches easily. Would I use it on a gig???????????

Have emailed PRS and yes they take a while to get back but they do eventually.

I love everything about this instrument (I must be honest the first time I tried playing without position markers it threw me but now it feels quite natural and I don't even think about it). It's a fitting millennium show piece for the result of man and machine. Yes machine! The cost in CAD for the routings must have been considerable. I'm not going to get into "wiping floors" and declaring "it's all over" or knocking the competition - that's not what this instrument is all about and I'm certainly not going to give marks out of 10.
I think it's worth every penny I spent on it and the investment value is almost irrelevant. A wouldn't swap it for any Gold top or any Strat, whatever year or condition. If I could afford it I'd buy another.