All Things Guitar

[BengalsRocker]

(01-20-2016, 11:05 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I haven't played much of the new stuff but it seems like a lot of people aren't all two impressed with Gibson's quality nowadays.  Fwiw, I too just bought an Epiphone Standard Plus and absolutely love it.  It's not the same feel to me as a real one, the weight and balance is a little different, but it plays fantastic.  Fit and finish are good too.

And IMHO their pricing has gotten to the point where it's a little ridiculous.  Street price on a Les Paul Standard is $2,799.  A Les Paul Custom is $4,799.   Street.  List is $6,800.Craziness.  Off the top of my head, I think in around 2000 those Standards were about $1,800 and the Customs around $2,750.  They've damn near doubled.  The new studio is $1,499.  When I worked at GC these could all day long at 899.

Meanwhile, the quality of the imports has never been better.  What you can get for 500 is pretty damn amazing.

For me, if I'm shelling out that type of coin and have to have a Les Paul I'd either look at Heritage (Original Kalamazoo plant) or I'm looking at a slightly older one.  There was a Studio they did in the early 80's that they actually did in Sunburst, with binding.  But it has the dot inlays instead of the trapazoid.  And it's out of the old plant.  I'm guessing you could get one of these for around the same price as the new ones.

I'm actually quite impressed with the Epi 60s Tribute in particular. 

Even though it had locking Grovers on it I didn't care for the ones that came with it.

I changed those out with some better quality ones(at least IMO).

That model has the USA pickups and guts.  The neck is fantastic.  At least in my hands.

From the Gibson the traditional seems like pretty good quality that's not $4,000. LOL

Gotta take that pickguard off though.  Like Shake hates the knob set-up on Strats.  I hate those things.

I have had many guitars throughout the years and never had hand/pick marks on the body from playing.

I just don't play into the body like that.  I guess I'm not the norm.