Epiphone LP differences?

Soujurn

Soujurn

New member
Between the Quilt Top's and the LP Standards?
Are the QT's a little or a lot better than the Standards?
Is it just the woods? The PU's and related wiring? Tuners?

Someone asked me this and I was a little hard pressed to list them all.
I know the Epi's cannot compare too favorably to Gibson models, but then again, we are talking about under $1000 guitars.

I've heard and read in some forums that the Quilt Tops are the best Epiphone LP's of all the LP clones. True?
 
Re: Epiphone LP differences?

Headstocks. The Epi headstocks suck. Now, a MIJ Epi is really nice.

Epis play and sound great, and they often look great too. I just don't like the headstock.
 
Re: Epiphone LP differences?

The Epi Elite models have a few upgraded differences, and I'm not sure if all are made in Japan, but these would be top of the line Epis and IMO, would smoke the non Elite models. Even the headstock looks better, not quite the open book, but cleaner than the usual one. This one on ebay looks pretty sweet.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Epiphone-Les-Pa...094089293QQcategoryZ33037QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
I do LOVE my 2 MIJ Epis...Riviera and LP Custom.
 
Re: Epiphone LP differences?

I'm Imagine Epi Quilt Top's are lamanates. I don't think you can buy a guitar for under 1k with a true AAA grade maple cap.
 
Re: Epiphone LP differences?

butnut said:
The Epi Elite models have a few upgraded differences, and I'm not sure if all are made in Japan, but these would be top of the line Epis and IMO, would smoke the non Elite models. Even the headstock looks better, not quite the open book, but cleaner than the usual one. This one on ebay looks pretty sweet.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Epiphone-Les-Pa...094089293QQcategoryZ33037QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
I do LOVE my 2 MIJ Epis...Riviera and LP Custom.
Click to expand...

i dont like the epi headstock in that ebay link.
i prefer the ones they use now. but theyre still no comparison to gibson ones.

personally i just rewired the whole guitar, threw in dimarzio pups and now its rockin. sounds really good and plays really well too. no issues with it so far
 
Re: Epiphone LP differences?

kmcguitars said:
I'm Imagine Epi Quilt Top's are lamanates. I don't think you can buy a guitar for under 1k with a true AAA grade maple cap.
Click to expand...
Get the plaintop.... $100.00 less..... All Mahogany Body, and no veneer on the maple top. I have a plaintop and a standard. I think the plaintop sounds a lot better than the standard. One other thing to note is the plaintop is much better looking in person than the photos that are used to sell it.
 
Re: Epiphone LP differences?

kmcguitars said:
I'm Imagine Epi Quilt Top's are lamanates. I don't think you can buy a guitar for under 1k with a true AAA grade maple cap.
Click to expand...

The flametops and quilts are veneers. They are maple laminates though. They are just cut really thin so they get more tops out of a fancy piece of maple and glue it to a plain piece of plain maple. The biggest give-away, besides the headstock shape is the heavy poly finish vs. the thin finish on a Gibson.

I said this in another post, but I have two Epi Les Pauls. They both play and sound good, but the Plain Top has a much more solid bottom end than the standard. Could be the pups to some degree, but I would bet the wood has a lot to do with it also.
 
Re: Epiphone LP differences?

The only difference between the LP Standard flame tops and quilt tops is the veneer top itself. Everything else is the same. As for the quilt being the best of them, not entirely true. I've playing some great quilts and some not so great quilts, same with the flame tops. Now, if you want what I think is the best of their line, check out the LP Ultra. Now that is a sweet low budget Les Paul.

Just for the record, my LP Standard Plus has a veneer maple top. The flame has a 3D quality to it that moves as you move the guitar around. Only real flame maple and flame maple veneer do that. Fotoflame doesn't change as you move it around. The quilt tops are the same way.
 
Re: Epiphone LP differences?

I have an Epiphone Flame Top Les Paul in the basement (with a Bigsby :eek13: ) that has had the headstock broken off and glued back at least once

n6201882_31384419_7914.jpg


It still plays well (for a Gibson :crazy: ) though.
 
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