Epiphone Les Paul Standard Guitar - Does It Live Up to the Legend?
Whether to buy the Epiphone Les Paul guitar or not is a favourite topic to be discussed by people who like to play a guitar as well as other music lovers. Guitars such as the Epiphone Les Paul are affordable but not cheap; you get an inexpensively priced quality guitar.
The history of the Epiphone Les Paul guitar goes way back in the late 1800′s when Anastasios Stathopoulos from Turkey mastered his ability in creating string instruments. When his family migrated to the United States in the early 1900′s, he put his skills to good use.
He made a company solely based on his craft. The timing was right since America took a liking to these musical string instruments. In 1928, the family began making the first Epiphone model. The name originated from Epamimondas, the name of the guitar maker’s son. However, Gibson bought the guitar company in 1957.
The great response from their customers prompted the company to venture out to guitar-making. The name Epiphone was actually taken after Anastasios’ son, Epamimondas, in 1928. However, after a few decades of operation, the company was bought by Gibson in the late 1950s.
In the early 1950s, Gibson introduced the Les Paul electric guitar, named after the popular guitarist Les Paul who also invented his own solid body for the guitar. Gibson designed a different version of the guitar while still incorporating suggestions from Les Paul and using him as the endorser for the new product.
The Epiphone Les Paul guitars are affordable yet they do not sacrifice quality; to make this possible, they utilised cheap materials and low labour cost in places like Korea. But nonetheless it is still a good guitar.
But because of the notion that cheap guitars are of low quality, people often find themselves arguing over it. Some would say that the tone is not at par with the original Gibson Les Paul guitars, and others would say the Epiphone necks are not very user-friendly.
Moreover, they added that the structure of the Epiphone’s neck also makes it difficult for the user to hold. Some would further say that due to the cheap materials used, the model really is inferior to the original Gibson guitars.
The truth of the matter is that the Epiphone is very much the same as the standard Les Paul guitar, built with more mahogany pieces, yet the sound is the same.
Users of the Epiphone guitar have not complained about it and they say the pickups are the same as the Gibson standard, and although the heads tend to move more than the standard, this helps to keep it tuned. If you take a good look at both the Epiphone and the standard Les Paul guitar, you will find no difference at all!

