Dismalhead
Doctor of Teleocity
Hey all,
Here's my new Epi ES 339 with P90s in all it's glory. Received it yesterday and test drove it for 3+ hours last night. Since I've got some time on my hands I figured I'd post a review along with the pic.
Cost $359 brand new from Musician's Friend.
Made in China
Weight is 7 lbs, 6 oz.
Body: The finish and workmanship is gorgeous. Absolutely flawless. From the pics on MF I thought it might be satin which wouldn't have been my top choice, but it is indeed glossy as all get out and looks stunning. Binding is an ivory color. The workmanship is as good as my '90s Korean Sheraton that I used to have; better than on my '90s Gibson LP Studio.
Neck: 12" radius fretboard, rosewood, 22 frets. I noticed immediately that I was getting black gunk on my hands as I played. I looked it up and people said Epiphone was putting dye on the fretboards to make them look more uniform and dark. By the end of my session most of the dye was gone, my hands had cleaned up after washing them every hour or so, and the fretboard was much lighter in color. IMO it looks much better without the dye; to my colorblind eyes it looks to be reddish/brown. There is some dark figuring in one place up on the higher frets as you can see in the pic. I spent some time afterwards rubbing the board with a shop towel to remove the last remnants of the dye. Feel is great, except the back of the neck is painted and it has the old painted neck stickiness to it. I've sanded down all my other necks to bare wood with just a touch of Tru Oil - not sure if I'll do that on this one because it's so beautiful as-is. Fret polish is good and uniform, but some of the fret ends are slightly stabby to my fretting hand. I'll deal with that in the next day or so.
Pickups: Newer model P90s called "P90 Pros". A wonderful surprise. They sound very much like P90s. They're sparkly and round clean, and then when you crank on the distortion they're gnarly tone monsters. I had to turn down the distortion level on both my pedals which were set for my Teles and Strats. Combined with the semi-hollow design they're deep and resonant. Put on the neck pickup and dial down the tone and it's got probably the best "woman tone" I've ever had on any guitar.
Hardware: No issues that I can see. Tunomatic bridge, Epiphone Deluxe Kluson-style tuners. Tuners feel good when I turn them - nice and solid. Nut is probably plastic, but I'm gonna leave it be for the time being because it's staying perfectly in tune.
Playability and set up: First thing I did was tune it up and checked the set up. 4 of the 6 strings were perfectly intonated, 2 just slightly off. I'm guessing the strings are .10s - I switched to .09s a while back and these feel a bit thick to me. Strings were new like they'd just been put on and hadn't been stretched out; it was badly out of tune when I opened the box. I spent about 10 minutes stretching them out. Action is uniform and excellent, strings close to the fretboard like I like it. This is possibly the best set up brand new guitar I've ever bought, and it plays like a dream. The guys in China obviously take pride in what they're doing. The neck pickup was significantly louder than the bridge, so I adjusted the heights to balance them out this morning.
Summary: The guitar and I had a magical bonding experience last night. Haven't felt like that for a while. I played everything from clean, mellow Moody Blues to jamming along with my old Scorpions Lovedrive CD (yes, I'm musically stuck in the past). Tons of bending and screaming leads. I tuned it twice in the first half hour, and then after that when I kept checking it with a tuner it STAYED PERFECTLY IN TUNE FOR THE REST OF MY JAM SESSION - over three hours. Awesome. I love this guitar.
Also, it looks a bit dark to me with the black pickups on the black body, so I ordered myself a 5-ply black pickguard this morning which should have a wider white edge and make the pickguard stand out a bit more and break up the all-black appearance.
Here's my new Epi ES 339 with P90s in all it's glory. Received it yesterday and test drove it for 3+ hours last night. Since I've got some time on my hands I figured I'd post a review along with the pic.
Cost $359 brand new from Musician's Friend.
Made in China
Weight is 7 lbs, 6 oz.
Body: The finish and workmanship is gorgeous. Absolutely flawless. From the pics on MF I thought it might be satin which wouldn't have been my top choice, but it is indeed glossy as all get out and looks stunning. Binding is an ivory color. The workmanship is as good as my '90s Korean Sheraton that I used to have; better than on my '90s Gibson LP Studio.
Neck: 12" radius fretboard, rosewood, 22 frets. I noticed immediately that I was getting black gunk on my hands as I played. I looked it up and people said Epiphone was putting dye on the fretboards to make them look more uniform and dark. By the end of my session most of the dye was gone, my hands had cleaned up after washing them every hour or so, and the fretboard was much lighter in color. IMO it looks much better without the dye; to my colorblind eyes it looks to be reddish/brown. There is some dark figuring in one place up on the higher frets as you can see in the pic. I spent some time afterwards rubbing the board with a shop towel to remove the last remnants of the dye. Feel is great, except the back of the neck is painted and it has the old painted neck stickiness to it. I've sanded down all my other necks to bare wood with just a touch of Tru Oil - not sure if I'll do that on this one because it's so beautiful as-is. Fret polish is good and uniform, but some of the fret ends are slightly stabby to my fretting hand. I'll deal with that in the next day or so.
Pickups: Newer model P90s called "P90 Pros". A wonderful surprise. They sound very much like P90s. They're sparkly and round clean, and then when you crank on the distortion they're gnarly tone monsters. I had to turn down the distortion level on both my pedals which were set for my Teles and Strats. Combined with the semi-hollow design they're deep and resonant. Put on the neck pickup and dial down the tone and it's got probably the best "woman tone" I've ever had on any guitar.
Hardware: No issues that I can see. Tunomatic bridge, Epiphone Deluxe Kluson-style tuners. Tuners feel good when I turn them - nice and solid. Nut is probably plastic, but I'm gonna leave it be for the time being because it's staying perfectly in tune.
Playability and set up: First thing I did was tune it up and checked the set up. 4 of the 6 strings were perfectly intonated, 2 just slightly off. I'm guessing the strings are .10s - I switched to .09s a while back and these feel a bit thick to me. Strings were new like they'd just been put on and hadn't been stretched out; it was badly out of tune when I opened the box. I spent about 10 minutes stretching them out. Action is uniform and excellent, strings close to the fretboard like I like it. This is possibly the best set up brand new guitar I've ever bought, and it plays like a dream. The guys in China obviously take pride in what they're doing. The neck pickup was significantly louder than the bridge, so I adjusted the heights to balance them out this morning.
Summary: The guitar and I had a magical bonding experience last night. Haven't felt like that for a while. I played everything from clean, mellow Moody Blues to jamming along with my old Scorpions Lovedrive CD (yes, I'm musically stuck in the past). Tons of bending and screaming leads. I tuned it twice in the first half hour, and then after that when I kept checking it with a tuner it STAYED PERFECTLY IN TUNE FOR THE REST OF MY JAM SESSION - over three hours. Awesome. I love this guitar.
Also, it looks a bit dark to me with the black pickups on the black body, so I ordered myself a 5-ply black pickguard this morning which should have a wider white edge and make the pickguard stand out a bit more and break up the all-black appearance.
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