player opinions

Epiphone Les Paul ‘56 Gold Top

Epiphone Les Paul ‘56 Gold Top

  1. Name: Maxime Alary

  2. Band: Zombies From The Underworld

  3. Model Year: 2005

  4. Price Paid: $550

  5. Performance

  6. The Late 50’s neck feels great. It’s smooth and easy to play. I prefer it to the slim taper neck. The quality of the guitar is irreproachable. The only weakness, it’s a little heavy so it makes it uncomfortable when you play stand-up for a while, but the Mahogany body can delivers awesome sustain compared to Maple or Ash.

  7. Performance Rating: 9

  8. Sound Quality

  9. God bless P-90. They sound great. This guitar can handle a nice rockabilly crunchy tone even on a clean channel. There’s absolutely no buzzing or fret noises on mine. It also has a quite impressive sustain for a set neck/tailpiece guitar. It is as good as the through body set up on Flying V’s and Explorers.

  10. Sound Quality Rating: 10

  11. Construction

  12. Playing this guitar makes you feel like you’re playing a $3000 dollars instrument, for about $500. How could someone not like that shiny gold carved top, it’s simply awesome and I’ve never seen something like it. Even if the guitar is brand new, I’m confident I’ll own this guitar for many, many years and I’ll still be able to rely on it to give me great sound and a nice smooth feeling.

  13. Construction Rating: 10

  1. Name: Morry Stern

  2. Band: -----

  3. Model Year: 2002

  4. Price Paid: $499

  5. Performance

  6. Yes, I love the Gold top, but I would have to say that the action makes a tapping sound when I press down to play a single note.

  7. Performance Rating: 7

  8. Sound Quality

  9. Both.

  10. Sound Quality Rating: 7

  11. Construction

  12. No problems.

  13. Construction Rating: 7

  1. Name: James Towner

  2. Band: -----

  3. Model Year: -----

  4. Price Paid: $550

  5. Performance

  6. The guitar is a terrific value! Overall the guitar is well made, fit and finish are first class. The guitar has a wonderful neck and the frets are finished in a flawless manner.

  7. Performance Rating: 10

  8. Sound Quality

  9. The pickups sound great. I have a 1956 Gibson ES-125T with a dog ear P-90 and the Epiphones sound similar. I can not detect a difference and that is, of course, the hollow body has a different overall tone than the Les Paul, but I feel no need to rush out to buy replacements. No feedback through either my Deluxe Reverb or Vibrolux Reverb ( originals.)

  10. Sound Quality Rating: 9

  11. Construction

  12. This is where the Gold Top excels first class finish, level frets and no rough edges on fretboard. The quality of this guitar is as good or better than anything I have seen in the stores of late; I must also advise that Korea makes very high quality products as fine as Japan and as good as the U.S. The fact that this guitar is what it is for under $600.00 is really amazing. I would be willing to bet that if the Korea factory made the American version — same wood, pick-ups and nitro finish, it probably would exceed the U.S. version. I have manufactured products all over the world and I would make a product in Korea first as price and quality are tops. Remember, made in the USA now means high labor rates and insurance costs, this comes out in the finished product. An example would be a General Motors car over 30% of the end cost is for labor alone. Ford and Chrysler average under 18%, guess which car has more plastic parts?

  13. Construction Rating: 10

  1. Name: Andre Liemborg

  2. Band: Mocca Chocalata Ya Ya

  3. Model Year: -----

  4. Price Paid: $500

  5. Performance

  6. I’ve played this guitar for one year now and from the moment I picked it up I was in love with it. It handles very smoothly and sounds full and rich. When I compared it to the Gibson LP gold tops available I couldn’t notice any difference in quality, and the differences you can notice are not to be found in the quality section. Its humbuckers sound fabulous and do what you’d expect them to do. They can be mean like a tiger or purr like a kitten. It stays in tune quite well for a mahogany body guitar and as long as you don’t submit it to great temperature changes you’ll be fine. The only thing I had to improve were the saddles of its tune-o-matic bridge. Somehow they were too edgy and/or not well polished and had the irritating habit of being a string-eater, but I encountered that problem on my Gibson SG as well, so all in all a super guitar for a super price!

  7. Performance Rating: 10

  8. Sound Quality

  9. The two humbuckers do what has to be done and they do it well. They give nice feedback and sound clean, not noisy. When you turn the volume down with your pickup volume controls, it’ll take off the edge of the treble and make it smooth like butter until you turn them back open again and let them loose!

  10. Sound Quality Rating: 10

  11. Construction

  12. Finish is 100% and it all works as it should. Frets are very smooth and I found them even better than the ones on my Gibson SG, the neck plays like a dream, but I always preferred Gibson necks over Fender necks, but OK that’s a personal thing. The only thing that P’d me off was the earlier mentioned tune-o-matic bridge and its hunger for strings, but that’s easy to sort out and is, in my experience, something that can not only be said of this particular guitar, the Gibson SG was just as hungry. So due to this, a rating of...

  13. Construction Rating: 10

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  1. Average Ratings
  2. Performance: 9
  3. Sound Quality: 9
  4. Construction: 8.8
  5. Ratings Key
  6. 10: Excellent
  7. 0: Useless
  8. Company
  9. Epiphone

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