Believe It or Not - You Be the Judge

[just strum]

http://www.epiphone.com/news.asp?NewsID=1473

[ragnarpk]

damn i love the guitar he has in those pictures...

but i'm not gonna give any opinion on the actual content. i have had good experiences with epis in the past, though, i must say..

[Suhnton]

With an average of 10 minutes per guitar (500 guitars / 10 men / 8 hour day), as the article says, it's enough time to ensure no major flaws are present. The action on the guitar in the photo looked pretty high to me. I think they'd deliberately set the action high to eliminate fret buzz without having to adjust the truss rod. Having said that, I'm very happy with both of my Epi's. I think the inlay work is a bit cleaner than my Gibson LP. In fact for the price you pay for a Gibson you'd expect the inlay work to be of a higher standard.

[Spudman***]

I've spent quite a bit of time at the western USA Ibanez importer. They do this with all their guitars as well. There are a few guys that have little qubies with benches and amphs and they pull out stacks of guitars and basses to go through each day from the warehouse right next to them. The Ibanez guys do a pretty good job in my opinion. I have never came across a showroom Ibanez that was set up as poorly as some Epiphones I've tried.

In all fairness it must be extremely monotonous to do this all day long 5 days a week. I could see how a persons focus could drift and a few questionables could get through.

The Ibanez guys have some awesome eye candy adorning their walls. Much nicer than the cube in the article.

[just strum]

I've spent quite a bit of time at the western USA Ibanez importer. They do this with all their guitars as well. There are a few guys that have little qubies with benches and amphs and they pull out stacks of guitars and basses to go through each day from the warehouse right next to them. The Ibanez guys do a pretty good job in my opinion. I have never came across a showroom Ibanez that was set up as poorly as some Epiphones I've tried.

Having owned both, I think all-in-all, they both do a good job. I've had three Epi's and possibly a fourth, so I'm sold. Plus, I wouldn't hesitate to buy an Ibanez with a concern about quality. True, some bad ones will always slip through, but I think these two have a low probability.

[ZMAN]

When Epi first moved to China I was looking for a Cherry Sunbursts LP to replace an Epi Custom plus MIK that I foolishly sold. I called around to a few local stores and I found one that had just received a shipment of about 15.
I went right down and I tried about 8 or 10. They had evry color, and two in Cherry sunburst and all of them had issues. a couple had loose tuners, and quite a few of them had the bridge studs at weird angles to the body. I finally found one that was good and of course took it to my tech to have it set up. I normally buy from him but he did not have any. When I do buy from him the guitar is usually set up before I see it. So I can't say if they were good out of the box or not.
To say the least I was not happy with the quality control from Epi China. I think that is why they check every one now. The main complaint I had was that the nuts that hold the tuners on were not tightened and they would actually rattle. The guitar turned out to be a good player but I purchased a couple of Gibbys so I traded it for two of the Deluxe Strats.

[Viking Power]

This is quite heartening as I just ordered an Epi G-400 at Guitar Center (no way was I going home with their floor model!). Overall I felt that the quality of the Epiphone guitars seemed to be way superior to the Squires that I tested out. Ibanez seemed very high quality for the price though too.

Anyway, can't wait to get my new axe!:

[just strum]

This is quite heartening as I just ordered an Epi G-400 at Guitar Center (no way was I going home with their floor model!).

Congrats on the G400 - what color?

[Viking Power]

Congrats on the G400 - what color?

Thanks! I decided to go with Ebony. I expect to take delivery on the 15th and will post a pic or two once I get it.

Speaking of colors.....I got turned on to the fact that Clapton rocked an SG while in Cream which I believe he named "Fool". That thing had one of the coolest custom paint jobs I've ever seen on a guitar or anything else for that matter. Definitely a '60's psychedellia type vibe but just watching the youtube of "sunshine of your love" makes me want to grow my hair out, throw on some vintage clothing and play music all day! Very interesting since I mostly think of Clapton as the distinguished, bearded, glasses and stratocaster wearing musician from the '80's. Always cool to broaden the old horizons!


EDIT: Thought I should link to the video since I think all will enjoy it. Here goes------>

[Spudman***]

Speaking of colors.....I got turned on to the fact that Clapton rocked an SG while in Cream which I believe he named "Fool". That thing had one of the coolest custom paint jobs I've ever seen on a guitar or anything else for that matter. Definitely a '60's psychedellia type vibe but just watching the youtube of "sunshine of your love" makes me want to grow my hair out, throw on some vintage clothing and play music all day!

Todd Rundgren owns that guitar now and uses it often.

[Viking Power]

Todd Rundgren owns that guitar now and uses it often.

Yeah, I read that in wikipedia, also read that Clapton loaned it to a guy, who "borrowed" it for 4 years then sold it to Rundgren for $500. Wonder if that is all fact. Did Clapton get anything out of the deal?

Wikipedia also had that Rundgren sold it recently at auction for $150,000. Again, did Clapton get anything out of all of this?

Interesting stuff!

EDIT: Oops, just realized I got off track of the original thread. Sorry!

[Spudman***]

Apparently Todd did sell the original. I saw him since 2000 with one of the copies I assume. I bet he's kicking himself because after he sold it for $150,000 it resold for $500,000. :

[Viking Power]

For that kind of money I would hope that it would somehow bestow the skills of Eric and Todd upon my fingers as well!

[NWBasser]

I've spent quite a bit of time at the western USA Ibanez importer. They do this with all their guitars as well. There are a few guys that have little qubies with benches and amphs and they pull out stacks of guitars and basses to go through each day from the warehouse right next to them. The Ibanez guys do a pretty good job in my opinion. I have never came across a showroom Ibanez that was set up as poorly as some Epiphones I've tried.

In all fairness it must be extremely monotonous to do this all day long 5 days a week. I could see how a persons focus could drift and a few questionables could get through.

The Ibanez guys have some awesome eye candy adorning their walls. Much nicer than the cube in the article.

I bought both an Ibanez A/E guitar and an electric bass from Guitar Center. Not exactly known as a paragon of instrument upkeep. Nevertheless, the stock setup on both instruments was excellent. I've never made any adjustments to the A/E and it plays better than most acoustics and better than quite a few electrics.

My impression is that Ibanez is really good at the QA/QC stuff.

[hubberjub***]

In the article it states that 1 or 2 out of ten guitars that they inspect have an issue. Does 10-20% sound like a lot to anyone else? Nothing against Epiphone, but if I screwed up 10-20% of the time while I was a work I don't think I would still have a job.