UNDER THE HOOD
Is the Fiore as tidy on the inside as it is on the outside?
This Fiore had already been on a couple of promotional visits to UK retailers, so the fact it needed a string change gives us a chance to take a closer look. As you can see, all three pickups screw directly to the body and use a spring under each screw as a cushion that allows enough height adjustment. Those single coils don’t have the flared base of the majority of aftermarket single coils, though – you won’t be able to fit your favourite Bare Knuckles or Lollars here. You might have more luck with the humbucker, although you’ll need to modify the legs because these are flush with the baseplate and they’re rounded, too. Plus, if you’re a real detail freak, you’ll notice that the pickup spacing, at 49.3mm, is a little narrow for the wider spacing of this bridge. On unscrewing the control backplate, we notice the wiring does look a little messy and certainly doesn’t go down the vintage-y cloth-covered wire and boutique cap route. No, this is all standard stuff with two 500k pull-push tone pots (both of which measured under that nominal value) and a CTS volume control that, with the pickups unsoldered,
These Fiore pickups are yet again tweaked and redesigned… and the circuit is unique
measures bang-on 300kohms. We have the usual 180 picofarad treble bleed cap and the .033 microfarads tone cap that you’ll find on plenty of PRSes, plus there’s a small resistor wired in parallel between the input lug of the volume and ground. As it's valued at 2.4mega-ohms, it actually means the pickups ‘see’ a pot value of 268kohms, which helps tune the circuit to where Mark and PRS are happy.