Re: Epiphone Ultra-II and Ultra-III same price at MF? Why? And search doesn't show
I had an Ultra II. The bridge pup was actually pretty good for that guitar. I tried a number of SD and DMZ pups, but the Epi bridge stayed in there for quite a while. It wasn't as good as the Seth I tried in there, but for the fact that it's the pup that comes in there, it's really good. It gave me the LP sound.
The Ultra's are a bit tricky, depending on your sound goal. Being "chambered" you can't pick a hot warm pickup. The guitar I had was bright and had a great tone. I just really kept trying to force it into a different sound. Finally I traded it for a Zakk Wylde Camo LP - not for the looks, for sure. It's a solid mahogany guitar with a maple neck. Thick and no weird feedback, like with the Ultra and a Super Distortion.
I recorded various pickups with the same (or pretty close) parts played each time and kick myself for not keeping that guitar and just buying the ZW LP. The Seths in the Ultra II were gold (literally and figuratively). My next favourites were the stock bridge and 59 neck, DiMarzio PAF and 59 neck, original Dirty Fingers with Pearly Gates Plus in the neck. The Super D and Super 2 were also my favourites, although feedback at a reasonable volume and gain meant they weren't usable outside of headphones.
I prefer the look of the Ultra III. I never liked the gold hardware and the awful quilt tops of the Ultra II. Sorry if you like quilt, but I can't stand it. It looks pretty, but flamboyant isn't my style. I like quilt tops as much as I like abalone binding (Schecter HellRaiser, uch).
You might want an Ultra II over a III if you don't want the extra electronics, or you really like the quilt tops and gold hardware.
The tuner is a nice touch on the III, when you don't want to fire up your current one, or you're away from it. The push switch for switching between the options for the nanomag is nice. Although, my preference would be to wire up the nanomag volume and the master tone with push/pulls on the Ultra II. The push/push version could mean a loop of missing your option: push, push, "Wait, I wanted the first option", push, push, push "Crap!". No big deal, unless you're playing live and actually do push an extra time by accident. Then you miss your mark because you've got to push the switch a couple more times.
Whereas if you use two push/pull switches the likelihood of doing things incorrectly drops significantly.
I actually saw my Ultra II go up on a local listing a while back. I contacted the guy and he said he sold it (shoulder injury meant he was selling all his gear). But he admitted, it was the best sounding guitar he'd ever played. When I traded it to him it had a JB and 59 (and the stock pups in the case). He contacted the new buyers on my behalf to see if they'd sell it back to me, but I haven't heard from them.
If you buy one, get it setup, if it's not already, and never let it go.
