Epiphone guitars, who uses them?

Rox

Embrace the 70's vibe and get some witch hat knobs...

the_jaffa

I have a 2002 Samick Dot that is a really good bit of wood but the electrics were tosh.  I've replaced them with a Shugz loom and a pair of Oil City pickups and it is a whole load better.

I've also had a 92 Sheraton that I bought new but that now lives with my brother.

WezV

I have a 96 green les paul, also limited edition - but every epi from this period got that logo on the back of the headstock

 

Its switch broke within weeks and it had a fret hump at the body join.   But now its has a full fret level and every single part replaced its quite a nice guitar

Basher

dogload said:

Basher said:

I have a 97 Peerless Casino and, contrary to received wisdom, in it's stock state it was a complete f***ing dog.

I've had to swap all the hardware and electrics on it at least once and it still sounds a bit dull. This wouldn't be such a problem with a Les Paul where you can choose from loads of after-market pickups at all price points and install them relatively easily. The Casino features P90s with non standard polepiece spacing (narrower at the neck) and different heights (lower neck pickup, taller bridge pickup) and so replacements are few and far between. 

That's interesting (to me, at least) as my Peerless Songbird initially sounded like it was covered in a warm, damp towel. I popped in some regular. bog-standard Epi Casino pickups off Ebay and it immediately sounded superb. 

@dogload - They're the same guitar so it doesn't surprise me that they have similar pickup issues. The P90s in mine were absolute junk - hot, dull and easily the worst pickups I've ever heard. I spent money getting them rewound - which improved things slightly but they still sounded like crap. Have messed about with magnets, pots, wiring too. Biggest change was recently when I took the metal covers off and put some plastic ones on which made them a bit brighter.

It's still not great though. The in-between setting doesn't have that lovely jangle that you get on a nice one. Also it buzzes and rattles like hell, presumably as I wasn't able to secure the covers to the pickup body. I had to drill the covers myself so they're a bit crappy all round really.

I've heard enough that I'm starting to think that it could be an OK guitar with better pickups but have been so disappointed with it that I really can't risk throwing more money at it. After market options are so limited which doesn't help. What is odd is that, as you point out, the pickups on the modern, Chinese Casinos I've tried sound fine to me. I don't know if they're up there with the USA ones or the Fralins but they sound OK.