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Reviews (3)
Dec 18, 2015
Fender's Best Kept Secret
0 of 1 found this helpful This pick-ups are a huge value. I have almost every Fender strat pick-up set they offer and these never disappoint! I used this purchase to "revive" a '79 strat as those pick-ups were strange and not in a good way. That strat did not sound like a strat should, all the 5-way positions were bland and kind of ugly sounding. I put a set of these in and also hooked-up the wiring with a push-push switch tone pot, so that my client could also get the mid & bridge pick-ups in series. So, this ends-up being a regular S/S/S strat with a really good switch position #2 and #4 "quack," but also converts the set-up into an H/S, if desired.
Jul 07, 2009
Epiphone Dot - User Review
1 of 1 found this helpful Why I bought: I have always wanted an ES-335, but the price takes it out of reach. The Epiphone Dot is the next best thing (Epiphone Elitist is actually the next best thing, but now they are going for $900+) so I decided to buy a good quality used "Epi Dot" and "Gibsonize" it, if need be.
What I bought: The Epiphone Dot I purchased is the newer "EE" serial number (made in China instead of Korea) and has the "natural" finish. It is quite an attractive guitar. Nice light binding around the body, black sealer around the "F" holes and even though the neck is not bound, they do use a nice shellac to seal and smooth the edges, so the lack of fingerboard binding (which the Gibson ES-335 guitars do provide) is not a real big deal.
What I like:
The guitar is a good-looking instrument! The neck is a nice solid thickness from fingerboard to back-side, definitely something solid in your hands, but not a baseball bat. By the way, the back of the fingerboard is stained a dark brown (pretty much the same as the ES-335 necks) regardless of the body color. Grover tuners that are included is a nice plus.In my opinion, the neck pick-up stays on, it is every bit as good as my '57 classic plus. Pots are good, no problem with them. Fret wire size is a good choice.
What I don't like:
The bridge pick-up has to go, no bite, no personality at all. I will replace with a '57 classic + or a 498T.
My biggest complaints concern the fingerboard.... The fingerbaord is kind of a rough surface (pretty typical for Asian manufactured guitars)that needs to be smoothed-out and oiled. Worse, the frets are not all leveled which makes the action go higher until I can co-plane all of them.
Dec 18, 2015
Small but Effective 2-Way Amp
1 of 2 found this helpful Now this is what I would consider to be a very good introductory guitar amp.
Too many "beginner's" amps do not have enough tonal color to be effective tools in order to both enjoy and explore electric guitar. This one is spot-on including reverb, plus separate bass, treble and mid-range tones. Further, this is really a 2-channel amp, at least in function.............
Where it gets really interesting is that there are separate volume controls, one for "clean" playing, the other for over-driven tones. When you press the gray "drive" button, the clean volume is by-passed and the drive volume control takes over. A separate gain control regulates how much distortion is applied. By the way, due to the output watts versus the relatively small speaker size, a little gain goes a long way.
Unfortunately, there is no external speaker output, which is too bad as it would be interesting to play this amp thru a larger speaker to maximize the potential. Of course, with some very basic electronic skills, one can always make a speaker output connection.