Guitar enthusiasts often find themselves debating over whether it is a smart idea to buy an Epiphone Les Paul guitar. Because it is labeled as a cheap guitar, the misconception of it being of low quality is often construed.
The history of the Epiphone Les Paul guitar goes way back in the late 1800’s when Anastasios Stathopoulos from Turkey mastered his ability in creating string instruments. When his family migrated to the United States in the early 1900’s, he put his skills to good use.
Back in those days, the Americans have a fascination with the banjo, another stringed musical instrument. It was an opportunity for the Turkish instrument maker to extend his skills to this kind of instrument.
Anastasios had a son named Epamimondas and that is how the name Epiphone came about in 1928. It was also in this year that Anastasios began making guitars, until the Gibson Company took over the business in 1957.
In the early 1950s, Gibson introduced the Les Paul electric guitar, named after the popular guitarist Les Paul who also invented his own solid body for the guitar. Gibson designed a different version of the guitar while still incorporating suggestions from Les Paul and using him as the endorser for the new product.
The Epiphone Les Paul guitars are affordable yet they do not sacrifice quality; to make this possible, they utilised cheap materials and low labour cost in places like Korea. But nonetheless it is still a good guitar.
Some people argue that maybe the Epiphone Les Paul guitars now are not as good as the original Gibson version. Other guitar players think that the Epiphone has a different tone and not as good as the Gibson; some think that it is not even that user-friendly.
Moreover, they added that the structure of the Epiphone’s neck also makes it difficult for the user to hold. Some would further say that due to the cheap materials used, the model really is inferior to the original Gibson guitars.
In its defence, satisfied users would say that the Epiphone model performs well. It weighs lighter but it sounds perfect like the original. This is because the Epiphone model is also made of more mahogany pieces to produce the same sound like that of the Gibson model. The pickups for the two models are even similar. Even if the machine head for the Epiphone is bouncy, it aids well in making the guitar tune out well.
Users of the Epiphone guitar have not complained about it and they say the pickups are the same as the Gibson standard, and although the heads tend to move more than the standard, this helps to keep it tuned. If you take a good look at both the Epiphone and the standard Les Paul guitar, you will find no difference at all!