Are expensive Epiphones better than cheap ones?

[Lt. Bob]

I have an Epi Firebird and an Epi Zak Wilde ..... I like them both but the more expensive Zak Wilde is definitely a much better built guitar by a large margin.
Strangley enough though .... my favorite git is the Firebird.

 

[cephus]

I got the gold Scotty Moore thing. The ES-295. I am a big fan of scotty moore anyway, and the flamboyant flower pot pickguard really just takes the retro thing one step further. It's the same one in the picture up there^

The main reason I wanted it was because i was looking specifically for a hollow body (not semi-hollow) with single coil pickups. The bigsby-licensed vibrato works really well. I never really thought that the shorter scale was going to be noticeable, but I think it makes a huge difference. It is pretty loud without an amp, really, and that has kind of been a drawback. I can't play it late at night after everyone goes to bed because it'll wake up the kids. It also looks so purty that I am kind of afriad to take it out to a gig. I took it to practice and walked into a mic stand with it and sniffled for 20 minutes. It's not that I'm afraid to screw it up as much as the fact that it is a huge distraction for me.

I do have a gig coming up soon and I am curious to see if I can use a hollowbody in my band environment. Playing at home, it really can honk on certain notes if I'm too loud/too close to the amp.

I am very pleased with it.

 

[TaperChuck]

I'm an ES-335 kind of guy. The Epi Elitist 335 is on par with Gibson version. The pick ups are very good although I might replace them with actual gibson pickups. If you get the top of the line you can get a good quality axe.

I had one of the Epiphone 335 clones. I loved that guitar. I really regret selling it.

 

[jimistone]

my 2 cents.

I, like you, got the "damn I want that guitar!" bug a few months ago. It was a used Korina wood epi flying V (the 1958 gibson copy). It had the V tailpiece which I think is very cool,
(I don't like the les paul style tailpiece on V's)

Anyway, the body and neck were perfect. It played alot better than most epis I've tried. That's the foundation and heart of a guitar IMO...the body and neck. Everything else can be replaced.

They were asking $400 for it and I talked them down to $350 for the guitar....that isn't a super deal, but I wanted it!

I kind of wanted to see what I needed. So I played a Gibson V for a while. The tThe Gibson Pickups were much better than the epi's...more definition and snap.
The toggle switch crackled...so I made them throw in a Gibson for free.
I went ahead and bought gibson tone and volume pots.
The epi bridge posts were bent a bit (the cheap shit)..I made them throw in 2 brand new gibson posts for free. I went ahead and bought a gibson bridge.
I had to tune the guitar a couple of times while I was playing it...so I bought a set of gibson keys (much better than the original epi keys).
I bought a set of '59 seymore duncan '59 humbuckers.

The guitar was wired with 2 volumes...one for each pickup...and 1 tone (back pickup)
It's a 3 knob setup, so I wired it like a strat with one master volume and 2 tones.....I like that MUCH better.

So, the bottom line is this;
guitar was $350
pickups were $100
Keys were $60
bridge and pots were aprox $20

I sunk $530 in an epi V....but I love it.

The fucker screams, never goes out of tune, and the electrics don't crackle.

I could have gotten a gibson faded V for around the same price....but I don't like them. They don't look as good, play as good, and they don't sound as good as the epi I have.

But, if I were to sell the epi it would still be a $350 guitar, even with all the gibson upgrades....$400 tops

I knew that going in and...for me...made a good decision...because im going to play it not sell it.

On the other hand, if you are wanting to get your money back, or even make money at some point....$1000 is better spent on a used gibson than a epi elitest IMO.

Congrats on your purchase...If you like it it's the right axe.

 

[cephus]

I have always been a strat guy and that had alot to do with why I wanted single coil pickups on the archtop. I was worried that gibsoney humbuckers would sound like an underwater buffalo fart through my strat-centric live setup.

I digress. I bought a used chinese squier strat for $75 at SA and did like you and replaced everything on it with the up-brand fender stuff. When I took the pickguard off (it originally had those snarly ceramic magnet pickups - sucked), I found it was routed pretty much from the neck to the bridge - one big hole. I think they call it swimming pool or bathtub. This meant that I could put any combination of pickups in it without having to get out the dremmel.

I opted for 2 chrome gibsoney humbuckers on a mother of pizzavomit pre-wired pickguard from guitar fetish ($35). Since the pickups are cheapies, the output seems to be not terribly higher than the single coils in my strats, so it sounds good through the same rig.

So, I bought the guitar for $75, $35 for the pickguard. I had the original trem that came in my '62 reissue strat, so I put that in. No idea what it would cost. I had some good tuners, so I put them in. No idea what they cost. I used the cover from some dora the explorer note book from a happy meal to make a headstock overlay that looks like a disco dancefloor. I bought transfer letters to put "disco slut" on as the model name. That was like a dollar. Then I got a custom cut decal for it that cost $25 for 6 of them. Actually it was $25 for the first one, and he threw in the rest because it was under a linear foot.

Truth is, I fricking love that guitar. It is new and fresh and really cool to look at. AND the trem stays in tune better than my real strat ever did. THe pickups have just enough oomph so I can actually sustain notes, but in the middle position, it is smooth and transparent enough for rhythm without changing any gain/fuzztone settings. And I have like $130 in it. At best, it's worth a bazillion jillion dollars, because that's what it'd take for you to get the disco slut away from me.

 

[Madguitrst]

Not long ago I wandered into a small mom&pop music store right outside of Philadelphia. I had always wondered about the Casino but hadn't played one.

Well, that day I played one and fell in love with it. I also checked out some other Epi guitars I hadn't seen. One was an Epi SG G-400 Vintage in a natural walnut finish. it was magical, better than just about every Gibson SG I'd played in a long time (FWIW, there was another Epi G-400 Vintage in cherry that was not as good). Again, I fell in love.

To make a long story short, I traded in a couple of my shredder guitars that weren't seeing much action these days to get the two Epi's and I love them dearly. I have more guitars than I care to admit, including some high-end babies, and these Epis can hang proudly among them.

They do have flaws however and it is in the hardware, such as the tuners (could use to be upgraded) and the toggle switch as noted earlier. Inexpensive fixes IMO for the quality you're getting for the price. Seriously, the Casino is vibe-o-licious. The SG playes like a hot knife through butter and the pickups actually sound decent for that Angus Young tone.

BTW, that day I also picked up a faded Les Paul Jr. with two P-90s and a Gibson Les Paul Melody Maker with a single P-90. The Melody Maker looks like a home-made toy guitar but plays like a dream and sounds flat out awesome.....all for $300 new.