Pros:great looks and solid construction, one of the very best $300 guitars out there
Cons:pickups and frets are not quite up to Gibson standards but can be easily fixed
The Bottom Line: For $300, you can't go wrong picking an Epiphone Les Paul Studio. Players with smaller hands might also want to look at the mexican fender stratocasters for same price.
I bought an epiphone les paul studio for my 11 year old son because I own a Gibson Les Paul studio and my son wanted to get a guitar just like dad's on a budget. So I have the fortunate opportunity to play both the epiphone and Gibson les paul studio models side by side. We bought the guitar new from a mail order store and it arrived neatly boxed and ready to go.
Upon examination, I will say the finish was very nice on the guitar. No major mistakes either in joint fit or in finish. Next, we tuned it up and plugged it in. My first observation was WHOA! the action was alot higher than my les paul. No problem, I grabbed my tool kit and proceeded to adjust the action to lower it. After lowering it to about the same as my paul, I tried it out and buzzzz. The strings were occasionally buzzing on different frets, etc so I raised the action up until I got buzz free tone all the way up and down the neck. Ended up higher than my Gibson but still very playable.
Next was to see what kind of tone the guitar had. Sound was a good bit quieter than my Gibson. The pickups were not as "hot" but the tone sounded good. Both bridge and neck pickups in the epi were a bit muted compared to the Gibson but very acceptable.
OK, now on to the verdict... the Epiphone is a close but not exact copy of the Gibson Les Paul. I think if you were to change out the pickups to true Gibsons and have the frets dressed so you can lower the action, it would be every bit as playable. So as it comes from the box, I would say you get about 75% of the guitar as a Gibson for about 33% of the price. Not a bad value at all.
Recommended: Yes
Read all 13 Reviews
|
Write a Review
