He even offered me $100 more than I paid for it if I would sell it to him. The second was a 2014 ES339 which also compared so favorably to my buddies Gibson ES339.

Compared to a Gibson equivalent the ProBucker P90s are a little less gritty but I tend to like them more anyway so I don't plan to swap them right now and quite possibly not at all.

Although I plan to replace the bridge and bridge studs with Faber hardware it's one of the best playing guitars I own even bone stock. Even after having sworn off LPs long ago I like it's neck profile and it only weighs 8lbs. The first is a late 2009 '56 Gold Top w/P90s I still have. Given their cost being roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the Gibson I'd call them a great value. I would call the two I contrasted to a good friends Gibson versions of the same guitar 90% as good as it's Gibson counter part.

I've had four MIC Epiphones to date and all have been very good sounding and playing guitars. If one wanted to gut it and upgrade they could make a good platform, but then they would be throwing more money at it instead of just buying a better unit off the shelf from another producer. I guess my point is that Epiphones look great, but there is cheapness to the production below the skin that seems to plague them. Oddly, when plugged into an extension cabinet the hiss was gone and sounded pretty good.but I had spent far too much money at that point to be happy. I had it re-worked (relocated the grounds, re-routed the heater wires, etc.) and the hum was gone, but some hiss remained. The wire gauge was so thin it leaked voltage everywhere and created a terrible combination of hum and hiss at idle. I was very impressed unboxing, but again it suffered from cheap internals. Again, just like the guitar, they nailed the looks factor down to every detail. I had high hopes by the video clips and the slew of positive reviews, but the reality was a different story. I also was one of the fools who purchased the Epiphone Electar amplifier when it was first released. Over-all, it wasn't a bad instrument, but I sold it for the reasons mentioned. A very good-looking guitar with decent pups, but it always fell out of tune and the neck was brutally heavy causing it to try and dive to the floor if you weren't paying attention. Played an Epiphone Riviera with 3xP90's for a couple of years.

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