Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

[ErikH]

Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

I had a MIC Epiphone LP that was really good. I also had a MIK PRS SE Singlecut Korina that was really good. At the same time I've picked up guitars made in both places that were utter crap. Just gotta pick thru the lot and find the best one.

MIJ stuff is on another level. Just really good stuff. My old Focus 2000 is MIJ and is a great instrument. Ibanez's high end stuff is amazing.

Korean made is overall better today than it was 10-20 years ago, no doubt about it.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

I prefer the Chinese Epi's over Korean. The Chinese made ones were greatly improved all across the board. Aside from the problem of inferior parts on the Korean, most korean EPI's I've picked up have had unacceptably high action, and when you try to adjust the truss rod to lover the action to an acceptable level, you get fret buzz due to a combination of improperly cut nuts and poor fret jobs. Also, most EPI's came with maple necks and alder, rather than maple tops.

The chinese EPI's come with better parts, are built with better wood, and come with better setups

I've always wondered how my MIC Epiphone LP from 2008 is 100% non-chambered mahogany (confirmed when I removed every ounce of paint and finish). There is no maple or alder, just solid mahogany and a rosewood fretboard. A pretty good guitar, just doesn't feel completely right to me, but good enough.

 

[jmh151]

Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

I've always wondered how my MIC Epiphone LP from 2008 is 100% non-chambered mahogany (confirmed when I removed every ounce of paint and finish). There is no maple or alder, just solid mahogany and a rosewood fretboard. A pretty good guitar, just doesn't feel completely right to me, but good enough.

That's because it's not real mahogany. It's Phillpine Mahogany, known as Luan. It's cheap and previously used to make cigar boxes. It's much lighter and not as strong as the Honduran or African mahogany Gibson USA uses...it's in the mahogany family, but tends to be whiter, like white korina, but with long pores

Right now I'm putting new pickups in a friends Korean les Paul, and it's right next to my USA les Paul custom. Just strumming them unplugged, the USA goes "ding" like a bell, the Korean goes "dong"- a much darker, duller tone.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

That's because it's not real mahogany. It's Phillpine Mahogany, known as Luan. It's cheap and previously used to make cigar boxes. It's much lighter and not as strong as the Honduran or African mahogany Gibson USA uses...it's in the mahogany family, but tends to be whiter, like white korina, but with long pores

Right now I'm putting new pickups in a friends Korean les Paul, and it's right next to my USA les Paul custom. Just strumming them unplugged, the USA goes "ding" like a bell, the Korean goes "dong"- a much darker, duller tone.

Looked up some pics. I think you could easily be right, BUT the wood is A LOT darker than white korina. Though the Luan stills looks very nice from the pictures I've seen.

 

[JeffB]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

Actually Luan is not a genus of african or honduran mahogany. It is its own thing the manufacturing industries stuck the name mahogany to as marketing. Tonally, I find it more like a cross between alder and non american basswood, nothing like Honduran, or even African mahogany, but thats another thread.

If you want an actual maple cap, the Epiphone Les Paul tributes are the only Epis to feature them...that is the model with upgraded electronics and 57 classics.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

Why are they being marketed as superior guitars? I agree with everyone here. I have Korean epiphones and Chinese epiphones and one Indonesian one as mentioned . I was shocked and pleasantly supprised when I got my Chinese 355 through the mail, It Blew my mid 90's sheraton out of the water! And 90's sheratons are going for the same price used, as a brand new Chinese 355! I just don't understand.

I suspect it's due to a belief that the country with the cheapest production costs has to be making the worst products, which is both why more manufacturing keeps moving there, and also why similar products previously made elsewhere have to be better. (Or so says that line of reasoning.)

I think some people get nostalgic for a time when Product X was made in Country G, before it moved to Country H, which is also making $39 Blu-ray players and $2 staplers. How could that country possibly make a good Product X? It's impossible, clearly. At the very least, it's easier to read about the move on the Internet and form the opinion than it is to drive to a store and play a few guitars, so let's just leave it at that.

 

[stringbender11]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

pretty much every guitar factory in the world is capable of making outstanding instruments, complete crap, or anything between. foreign company sez to the manufacturer, ''i need so many pieces with these general specs for this price,'' and the manufacturer figures out how to do it while making an acceptable profit. that's the reason why two different brands of guitars, two different models of the same brand, two different runs of the same model, or a run of 5,000 cheap guitars vs. a more expensive limited run of 250 special/limited edition guitars, all made in the same factory by the same workers can be quite different in quality. you can't really generalize by country ime. it's a run-by-run issue.

^This is correct^.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

There's nothing wrong with either chinese or korean axes, but ive never played a Korean axe that can compare to MIJ Ibanez artists or George Bensons, or even Jems. Those things are all world beaters. Still - japan made plenty of awful axes too over the years.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

One of you out there sigged something that I wrote a few years ago. The gist of my assertion was "everything over twenty five years old will be described as vintage even if it was a steaming heap of manure to begin with." Country of origin is immaterial. The older ones MUST be better. No proper explanation of WHY the old ones are supposedly better will be proffered.

This phenomenon is just another case of marketing crossed with nostalgia for a mythical golden age of mid-price guitar manufacturing. However old you are today, the supposedly better times will equate to approximately your early teens - when your ideas on music, guitars, cinema, culture, politics were being established in your mind.

From a vendor's perspective, age may be some pre-owned instrument's greatest attribute. Let us take the card game of Top Trumps as an analogy. If the card deck were Racing Cars of the 1970s, the most successful designs of the decade would be trumped by the Tyrell P34 simply by virtue of its having two extra wheels.

 

[Jocelyn]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

One of you out there sigged something that I wrote a few years ago. The gist of my assertion was "everything over twenty five years old will be described as vintage even if it was a steaming heap of manure to begin with." Country of origin is immaterial. The older ones MUST be better. No proper explanation of WHY the old ones are supposedly better will be proffered.

The drummer friend I jammed with had ( still has ) this Old LP copy. Made in 1963. I have listed it on my signature. The guitar pickups sound cool. but the body is PLY WOOD. He lent it to me for a while. I did the internet research and found out when it was made. When I told him it was 1963, he instantly though wow it is VINTAGE. How much will I get for it. No matter how much I told him that it does not matter as it is plywood he did not understand. All he understood was it was vintage.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

I suspect it's due to a belief that the country with the cheapest production costs has to be making the worst products, which is both why more manufacturing keeps moving there, and also why similar products previously made elsewhere have to be better. (Or so says that line of reasoning.)

I think some people get nostalgic for a time when Product X was made in Country G, before it moved to Country H, which is also making $39 Blu-ray players and $2 staplers. How could that country possibly make a good Product X? It's impossible, clearly. At the very least, it's easier to read about the move on the Internet and form the opinion than it is to drive to a store and play a few guitars, so let's just leave it at that.

+1.

 

[formula73]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

I got sucked into this a little bit with some of the late 70s Japanese stuff. I still have a few, a couple Burnys and an Ibanez 335 ripoff, and they're fantastic. However, these are my observations about some:

Matsumoku. Oh, Matsumoku. I've had 2 of their guitars, an Electra Outlaw and a Jazz Strad and the Outlaw was one of the worst-designed guitars I ever played. Once I got past the coolness of the MPC modules, the neck heaviness saw it move on down the road. I actually don't understand how a 13lb guitar could have so much neck dive. As pretty as the Jazz Strad was from afar, it had a cheap rosewood board (as opposed to the ebony on the Ibby), cheap hardware, and visible sanding scratches under the clear, and I mean, all over.

Fujigen. I had a black Greco Mint Collection V that was made of I-don't-know-what but I'm pretty sure one of the wings had a plywood chunk to get it to proper width. It actually played and sounded great but the Burny was better.

Burny. I don't know who made my white LPC clone but the back of the body is at least 4 pieces. It plays and sounds great but were I to find a steal on a Norlin, I'd take it.

As far as some of the Korean stuff I've owned, I outgrew all the Epis. The last to go was one of the 90s 'Korina' Explorers, which had paper-thin veneers on the top and back over some unidentifiable white wood and a maple neck. The neck pup cavity was FULL of epoxy from the neck joint. It was a pile and I'm glad I let it go.

90% of the Korean Deans I've owned were garbage. I have a Washburn Culprit that plays and sounds great but the poly is so thick at the cutaway (where I assume it pooled during finishing) that at the right angle, I can actually see light through the 1/16" of clear.

I had a Kramer Striker, the one with the pickguard, that while it played good it was dead as hell and plywood.

Everybody makes junk.

 

[SoundAt11]

Re: Is MIK becoming the new MIJ??

I've had a Japanese Epiphone (Les Paul Custom) and Korean ones (2 SG's, a Les Paul Std, a Sheraton, and an Acoustic) and the Korean ones are nothing special: chromed heavy hardware with bridges and tailpieces that wear out quickly from strings digging into them, thick plastic finishes, mufti-piece mystery-wood "mahogany" (Alder in my case) and "mahogany" (Maple in my case) necks, crappy tuners that won't hold a tune, tone-less, low-grade rosewood dyed brown, sharp frets-ends and low-grade metal that wears out after a few years of heavy playing, awful sounding pickups, rubbery 3-way switches, cheap pots and jacks that fall apart. The Japanese Epiphones are a good step nicer, although, they still need the same wiring, pickup, and hardware updates that you'd do to a Korean Epiphone. The Korean PRS SE's are really nice, though, more akin to the Japanese Epi's.