Epiphone Les Paul Modern Sparkling Burg

Deze gitaar is een meesterwerkje. Ziet er zeer mooi uit. Ze ligt lekker in de hand en op schoot zonder enige ' neckdive.' De probuckers klinken prima. Geen last van de ongelijke hals. De mahonie nek ligt lekker. De frets zijn uitstekend. De uitgebreide mogelijkheden zijn even wennen maar dat is een kwestie van lekker mee spelen.

Buiten het feit dat spelen met deze gitaar verslavend is heb ik geen nadelen of schoonheidsfoutjes kunnen ontdekken.

Het is een prachtig meesterwerk en ik wil het zeker aanraden.

Beautiful guitar. I initially feared the red would be too bright, but it's not the case. I rate this 5 because of the pricing. Sure some finishing details could be better, like around the cut, but I don't expect this from a guitar in this price range and I already knew this from pics.
Worth noting: the guitar has even a prime spot in my living room and my girlfriend loves it.
What's more important though is the build, playability and sound. It feels solid, not too heavy, the knobs feel well build (not so much plastic covers though), the tuners are simply WOW! and the sound is superb.
Just one thing: change the strings immediately. My fingers got black after playing it a few minutes out of the box.

Longer review (TLDR shorter one at the bottom):
The good:
Pretty much everything that matters to me the most, is great. Nut is cut at perfect height, and frets are leveled perfectly, I can go as low as I want with the action without fret buzz. Fret rocker detects just one fret that is slightly higher than others, but it's so minute that it doesn't affect anything no matter how low I set the action, so it's a non issue and not worth addressing. In fact, when it came the neck was completely strait! And even like that there was no buzz (I added some relief because personal preference).
Neck angle is correct, stop bar can go all the way down.

The "bad":
Nothing really. There is just one minor thing that could be put in "bad" category. One of the screws for adjusting pickup height must be bent a little, when I adjust the height, it wiggles the pickup as I turn it. But since it's set and forget type of thing, I don't even plan on changing it.

Neutral, i.e. not important for anything but listing it anyway:
Tuners have a little more play than I'd expect from Grovers, but function as advertised.
I removed the pickguard and there is the tiniest little chip on the finish where the screw hole is. Covered completely with screw head of the screw that holds the pickguard on the side of the guitar (has a little bigger head), nitpicking really.
Frets needed polishing.

Things you should know before buying:
1) This is a Les Paul. It has contoured heel, but don't expect Ibanez AANJ. There is a retaining wire on the bridge, it can buzz when played dry (doesn't come through when played plugged in), same as on several times more expensive guitars.
2) Epiphone labels the frets as "medium jumbo". Not sure if the word "jumbo" should be used for these frets. They are 1.3mm high and 2.3mm wide.
3) Hex key for adjusting the truss rod doesn't come with the guitar! This is an omission by Epiphone if you ask me. Make sure to get one if you don't have it from previous purchase.
4) Due to the treble bleed circuit volume tapper works so there is little change in volume until you come to, let's say, three on the volume pot. Then it drops rapidly from three to zero. You might like it, you might not, you might not care.

Short review:
This is a fourth guitar I bought online and it's the first one that didn't got sent back and didn't need to go to a luthier to fix it up, even though it's not the most expensive one I bought.
Funny thing, all previous ones came in pristine boxes, and outer box of this one was so mangled up that I thought it was broken for sure :D But it was well packed on the inside, even with bubble wrap under the neck, so no damage.

Sounds awesome. Plays awesome. Is awesome.

I absolutely love this Epiphone Les Paul Modern. The "Sparkling Burgundy" colour changes in the light (like a glass of wine) - so it's even better "in the flesh" than on photos. The black ebony fretboard is stunning and the Grover locking tuners are truly awesome. Then you plug it in and get an amazing tone out of those shiny chrome probuckers! So this guitar surpassed my expectations. The only thing I didn't like were the transparent volume/tone knobs... but I had already bought a new set (in black) - so problem solved. There are so many quality features (Graph Tech nut, Grover Rotomatic Locking Tuners, Ebony Fretboard, Probucker pickups, etc.) in this guitar. It's definitely "value for money" - but also a lot more than that. In my opinion it deserves 5 stars in features, sound and quality.