Head to head: Eastman Romeo - PRS 594 Hollowbody II

[Oscar67]

PRS 594 Hollowbody II vs Eastman Romeo

The PRS 594 Hollowbody II and the Eastman Romeo have much more in common with each other than with industry standards like the 330 or 335. They’re like brothers from different mothers. I currently have both so I thought I’d compare them. Both are modern, top-quality designs with a solid arched top with two humbucking pickups. To continue, they’re small-bodied, thinline hollowbodies with a small block of wood underneath the Gibson-esque bridge and tailpiece. There are also some differences, most notably price. The PRS costs twice as much but that reflects mostly labour costs because the Romeo is hand-built in China and the 594 in America. Otherwise these guitars are comparable and might be seen as close competitors.

	PRS 594 HB II	Eastman Romeo
Top	Solid maple	Solid spruce
Back, sides	Solid maple	Laminated mahogany
Neck	Mahogany	Maple
Fingerboard	Rosewood	Ebony
Scale length	24.594”	24.75”
Pickups	58/15LT	Lollar Imperial
Tuners	PRS vintage	Gotoh
Controls	Dual volume, dual tone, dual coil split	Master volume, dual tone
Fretboard radius	10”	12”

Another thing these two guitars have in common are low weight and modest dimensions. They’re far lighter and smaller than a 335 and will fit in the kind of gig bag used for solidbody instruments. The Romeo is especially short (at the cost of limited access to the upper frets) and might fit an airplane overhead cabin. Neither guitar has neck dive, they balance beautifully.

Construction, fit and finish are perfect on both guitars. The Eastman has some of that small-scale woodshop vibe that reflects the amount of handwork that went into it. The PRS has none of that and initially felt a bit sterile to me (though that didn’t last long). Tuning stability and playability are excellent on both, although upper-fret access on the Romeo is limited. Acoustic volume is modest, but the Eastman has more of it and it handles serious strumming better than the PRS. On the other hand the PRS sounds more balanced, nuanced and pleasant to my ears. Plugged in, they’re totally different. I’d expected more brightness and snap from the Eastman’s maple neck and ebony ‘board but the Romeo sounds much darker than the PRS. And much more powerful, thanks to the Lollar Imperials. The PRS has absolutely in-cre-di-ble transparency, 3D note separation and dynamics which makes the Romeo sound somewhat unresponsive when A/B’d together. The 594’s body resonates more and feels totally alive. Although both guitars are far away from Gibson territory, the Eastman’s voice is closer to it. I don’t mean to say that the PRS is bright and sterile. It’s not. It’s rich and beautiful. I wish there was a good YT vid out there that shows what the 594 can do in a jazz context, but there doesn’t seem to be one. All I can say that it doesn’t have to be the bright-upper mids machine that most vids make it out to be.

With gain, the Eastman is more of a ballsy rock ‘n roll guitar than the 594. With a Plexi classic rock tone the Romeo is addictive. I currently have 12s on mine and if Malcolm Young hadn’t played a Gretsch then he would have loved the Romeo. For rock rhythm guitar, it rules.

Personally, for me, the 594 is as close to perfect as a guitar can get and I’m selling my Romeo. Part of me hopes no one will buy it, because Romeo is a wonderful guitar and I can’t say that the PRS is objectively “better”. They have complementary voices.

^—check from 1:00 to 1:30 for neck pickup sound with just a bit of hair on it

^—Rich Severson captured Romeo’s sound quite well I think

edit: fixed wrong YT link

[Jim Soloway]

Excellent comparison but I just checked new prices and the difference appears to be much higher than double.

[Oscar67]

Indeed it is. About 6k for the 594 and 2.6k for the Romeo. It’s great to have a company like Eastman around.

[ccroft]

Now... where can I hear one of those new Solloways up against one of these two :)

[Jim Soloway]

Now... where can I hear one of those new Solloways up against one of these two

Right in between these two in price too.

[jads57]

So I used to own one of the original PRS Hollowbody 2 models some years back. Absolutely one the best versatile guitars around!
My issue was I hated the small neck shape, and couldn’t order one with a larger neck unless it was through Custom Shop PRS.At more than double the cost!
I even talked with Paul Reed Smith himself.I told him I’m a working musician not a MAGICIAN,he just laughed.

I’ve only played a Romeo with spruce top and Humbuckers. Really liked it, but again smaller neck.Also the ergonomics of the design feel much like EVH guitars,where the neck feels to short. Especially when trying to access upper fretboard positions.

Really hard to find the perfect answer. It’s always a compromise,and I think the ergonomics of the original designs from Fender and Gibson are hard to beat. That said I find myself happy with my Carvin Holdsworth HH2 models sans the 24 fret thing! Lol

[Oscar67]

I admire both models because they’re not a copy of anything and bring their own unique voice. Romeo’s voice is captured nicely in the Rich Severson video I think. The 594’s voice isn’t captured very well in a jazz context in any video I’ve yet seen. A lot of vids demo the guitar as a jangle machine. That’s too bad, because it can sound really woody, smoky and warm. And always amazingly articulate.

PRS’s own demo vid reveals how incredibly articulate this guitar sounds, although as usual, and sadly, they use bright, upper-mid amp tones to drive the point home that their guitars will cut through a mix. Still, the first minute of this vid demonstrates the liveliness of this incredible instrument.

[Greywolf]

I have an HBII Artist and would agree it is one of the finest overall guitars I've owned. The coil taps add a good deal of versatility and it's Craftsmanship is exquisite. It outshines both of my Gibson custom shops, and my 335 albiet they are wonderful guitars in their own right.

[Oscar67]

Changed the 594’s strings from standard D’Ad .011-.052 roundeounds to TI Bebop .011-.049 roundwounds. I adore TI’s on my jazzboxes and expected them to be great on the 594. But on this guitar the TI’s actually sound worse than the D’Ads. Didn’t see that coming. The highs are too strident and chords sound much less open. Some of this guitar’s magic seems to be missing with the TI’s.

[Woody Sound]

So I used to own one of the original PRS Hollowbody 2 models some years back. Absolutely one the best versatile guitars around!
My issue was I hated the small neck shape, and couldn’t order one with a larger neck unless it was through Custom Shop PRS.At more than double the cost!
I even talked with Paul Reed Smith himself.I told him I’m a working musician not a MAGICIAN,he just laughed.

That's odd, I had two of them and they had the wide-fat neck. I assumed they all had that. But yeah, I talked with Paul on the phone back in 1986 about a defective locking tuner on my new C24. An odd, prickly guy. He said "Are you like, really fussy, or what?"

[jads57]

The PRS Fat Wide shape is actually more like Medium depth neck with less shoulder.. I was asking for a Gibson 1958 or 1959 Historic Les Paul spec .90” to 1” and more shoulder.

Paul definitely thinks quite highly of himself, Lol!

[Oscar67]

I talked with Paul on the phone back in 1986 about a defective locking tuner on my new C24.

That’s a long time ago. PRS is interesting because people think the new ones are best, not the old ones. I tend to agree, they keep getting better and better. Their fabled QC is just that, however: a fable. Plenty of issues make it out the door.

[Woody Sound]

That’s a long time ago. PRS is interesting because people think the new ones are best, not the old ones. I tend to agree, they keep getting better and better.

When I sold the '86 C24 (with the awkward 5-way rotary knob and 'sweet switch') for a ton of $, I turned right around and bought a new one with the 5-way blade and standard tone control. Definitely better QC, electronics, and fretboard, at a fraction of what the '86 went for.

[FRRGC_]

So I used to own one of the original PRS Hollowbody 2 models some years back. Absolutely one the best versatile guitars around!
My issue was I hated the small neck shape, and couldn’t order one with a larger neck unless it was through Custom Shop PRS.At more than double the cost!
I even talked with Paul Reed Smith himself.I told him I’m a working musician not a MAGICIAN,he just laughed.

I currently have a PRS SE Hollowbody and I wouldn't say it has a small neck. While not a baseball bat, the reason I got that guitar is because it was the only guitar in the shop that didn't have a thin neck. Maybe check one out if you get the chance, they're a whole lot less expensive than an original or US built one.

[jads57]

I’ve been curious about those SE Hollow Body models. I haven’t been able And they look quite affordable,especially used. I would also love to try the N.Y.Romeo model with filter from type pickups and Goldo Trem in Black!

[Oscar67]

The SE Hollowbodies offer ridiculous value for money, especially if you consider how much they are sometimes discounted. In my experience they do need a good setup including fret polishing and sometimes leveling, but even so they’re a steal.

The other Romeo variations may have different body woods than the original one, which was designed to be a modern slimline jazz guitar.

[Bluedawg]

Changed the 594’s strings from standard D’Ad .011-.052 roundeounds to TI Bebop .011-.049 roundwounds. I adore TI’s on my jazzboxes and expected them to be great on the 594. But on this guitar the TI’s actually sound worse than the D’Ads. Didn’t see that coming. The highs are too strident and chords sound much less open. Some of this guitar’s magic seems to be missing with the TI’s.

I have a few PRS solid bodies. They all sound their best with D'Addario strings.

IIRC that's what they ship with, too.

It's like their pickups are optimized for D'Addario.

[Bluedawg]

My wife wishes we had bought one of the fabled Bonnie Pink PRS guitars many years ago, so we started looking at picking up a new one.

She ended up liking the blue finish on the Zach Meyers signature more than the pink options available these days, so we bought one of those.

The Zach Meyers is an Indonesian made SE hollowbody. It really is a nice guitar that holds up well compared to my US made PRS guitars as well as my Gibsons and other US made guitars I own. The fit and finish are well done, and the tones are awesome as well.

And we don't know much of anything about Zach Meyers. He got PRS to make him a great guitar, though.

[Oscar67]

The ZM has been quite popular for a long time and for good reason. It was sort of the SE-range’s ‘secret weapon’ until the SE DGT came out.

[Bluedawg]

The ZM has been quite popular for a long time and for good reason. It was sort of the SE-range’s ‘secret weapon’ until the SE DGT came out.

Nice

I really liked the US DGT models I've tried. Maybe I need to try out an SE DGT as well.

Although I do love their "594" products. There's something special about that scale length ... or maybe it's just my confirmation bias ... LOL

I picked up a Sire Marcus Miller M7 6 string bass last year. I wanted to try out a six string bass, but I didn't want to pay Fodera prices.

I like the Marcus Miller 6 string so much I've ordered one of their new F10 5 string models. It's their take on the Fodera Imperial body style. Hopefully Sweetwater will have them by June.


That said ... there's still a "cork sniffing snob" part of me that wants a real Fodera bass or maybe an F bass ... and now I would love to try one of these PRS 594 Hollowbodies.