« HFS = How freakin' sweet »

The PRS HFS bridge humbucker is found in many of their guitars as a stock pickup, and with great reason. It's a really great sounding pickup that works really well for coil splitting and also has a really nice old school quality that has a really "brown" effect when playing through a good spongy sounding amp. I'd say that its closest comparison would be a mix/match paring of the Gibson '57 Classic Plus mixed with a GOOD Seymour Duncan JB. It sounds great for a wide variety of styles and in a wide variety of (admittedly all PRS) guitars. I've tried it in various 22 and 24 fret PRS instruments all with great results. In the 22 fret guitars it looses a little bit of the high end sparkle and that is replaced by a meatier low end, great for rhythms and sustained leads. In the 24 fret PRS guitars, the pickup takes on another voice. The high end is more apparent and that wonderful '80s/'90s raunch really starts to come through. Everything from Silverchair to Van Halen to Racer X works with this pickup quite well.

The clean tones remind me of a blend between the classic Les Paul PAF tone, and an overwound Strat single coil. Very pure and rich, but never sacrificing brightness or clarity. It also sounds especially good when split or wired in parallel as many PRS guitars are... very Tele esque! When hit with some overdrive, the character turns into the heaviest PAF I've ever heard, but still retaining that great woody tonal character that I so love about good resonant guitars... this pickup lets the wood's tone shine through despite having a fair bit of output.

All in all I think the PRS HFS pickup is a great humbucker for many different applications It does both full and split coil tones well and works excellently in both clean and distorted settings in 22 and 24 fret guitars, both with and without tremolo. The general vibe of the pickup remains the same, but it does adapt itself to the guitar as well... a definite plus.