The Les Paul is chambered. Gun to my head, I do very very very slightly prefer the sound of the Les Paul. It's just the EC plays circles around the Les Paul (for my taste), and sounds cool too with the right pickups.
The downside of the EC is it's heavy. Well, "downside". I don't really mind that, though I haven't gigged it yet. I assume that is what the previous owner didn't like about it, because he did mention it being heavy when I got it off him. But I don't think that's what tonally makes the EC not as Les Paul-y as the Les Paul. The bridge on the EC is a few mm further away from the bridge pickup. I suppose adding that to the heavy Asian Mahogany body and neck (the Les Paul has a Maple top and a Maple neck) fattens it up. But I mean... it's cool. It still sounds great. Just a different, les Gibson-y kind of great.
nice auto correct on my post changing pups to pumps.
yeah the chambering neuters the sustain and body (no pun intended). plus the mahogany neck provides good resonance generally although I have another guitar with a maple neck that resonates as well.
not many guitars are PLEK'd. Gibson USAs are. For the lowest action without dead notes and buzz the PLEK'd frets are the only option for me.
Yeah they made a bad decision to hollow out the body but at least the fretboard is better.
I won't buy another non-PLEK guitar. The guitar makers need to wake up and smell the coffee and use PLEK.
Try a set of slash or something.