Now this looks a great guitar but its $1,299 / ÂŁ1,250
What do people thing of it for the price? Looks like Epi are pushing up into the $1500ish market and Gibson are moving even further up market
At the same time we have PRS moving down to $499 with the SE CE 24 Standard, which looks an incredible deal…
Are we going to need a new budget brand from gibson…?
I’m good for guitars right now.
And, that’s a shade pricey for me for what I assume is a China made guitar.
+I like my 2018 china casino. So far, it really does do and sound like I think a electric guitar is supposed to sound. And it plays real good too.
I’m good w/o DG guitar. 
I do like the color though. A real pretty blue for sure.
Still ain’t getting one.
This guarantees that the Epiphone R9 that I bought a few years ago is the ONLY new Epiphone I will ever buy. If there is another one in my future it’ll be a used one.
The Greeny Les Paul they just released is over $2000 here, by contrast, the Epi R9 was $1150 in 2021.
I bought the slash epi couple years ago and that imo was spendy for an epi, now the new ones are coming out at double that…
Just checked the epi R9’s here and they are $1500 sale ($1800 new) , the greeny is $2800!
A Gibson tribute is $2800 and a studio is $3,500, so if you want gibson headstock and gibson pickups why not… buy the gibson?
I know the greeny etc etc but…
It does make it hard to justify the Epiphones at that price when you can get the Gibson for a few dollars more and have that Gibson accrue value while the Epiphone loses value.
Like that a lot. Its a cool looking hollowbody with a great colour.
I dont have a problem with sig models at all, as long as it does not have a lot of signatures etc put on it.
Epi has a lot of them. The Adam Jones sig is one i could easily own.
My daughter have an Slash apetite burst epi. Looks and plays amazing, and it does not scream sig model…
But yes… i very much agree. Epi is starting to be way to pricey, you can easily get a gibson LP studio mod on the used marked cheaper than an new Epi LP.
It looks like Epi is moving up, and Gibson is moving up even further.
I have played Gibson LP studio, and honestly i can not find anything on that guitar that is much different from that Slash epi.
Both in build and playability, to me it looks and feels like the top epi mod is just as good as the Gibson «budget» mod
Nice guitar and I’d love one but I’m not spending north of £1000 on an Epiphone. If I was buying a hollow guitar I’d probably buy a Sire instead. Epiphone prices have gone crazy and I’m not convinced they’ve got any better to justify it. There’s other brands producing guitars that are at least as good for less money.
With regards to signature guitars I wouldn’t buy one just because it was a certain person’s model and yet there’s definitely some star power that I’m sure could influence me if I was deciding between 2 otherwise similar guitars. That said I need to improve a lot as a guitarist before I could ever stand in front of people and play one without being a massive imposter!
I think it’s a tasteful guitar, both design and spec wise.
It is a combination of specs you don’t see often in a (let’s admit) world of endless repetition.
I assure you, if the worlds taste wasn’t so conformist and boring, I’d be designing cars and guitars ALL DAY (wanted to be a car designer as a kid but in the 90’s humanity dissapointed me when I saw which design trends overtook the car market :()
Price is set where marginal cost and marginal profit meet on the graph of projected sales.
There is also little doubt about the “demand” part. High demand, high price.
Do I think it is a cool guitar to go for; sure, why not, live a little.
Is it a risk to buy before trying? it always is
Is it too expensive: I think perhaps a little but aren’t many guitars? Signatures might have that but not always; sometimes the added marketing value of the name actually has the artist counter it with ethics and insisting an affordable price. I think it is a nice opportunity for DG fans. I think this one has a good “workhorse” potential though; spec wise. If you are a DG fan, you like this design or even better: both; I think it’s justified to go for it. I own guitars from all over the world and I’ve seen the production processes for various products. You can build crap in the EU and US and quality elsewhere. Production and marketing is more than a label these days.
Bottom line: are you paying too much? I think so but not too much.
Alternatives?
Custom
As soon as you consider going over $1000 for a budget, you should consider what a custom guitar would give you for its price. It will be more expensive but you’ll get to choose EVERYTHING if you go for a local builder. You’ll be involved in the building process, feeling the love for the craft up close. The builder will give you consultancy and make the design even better when you exchange ideas.
A fully custom guitar seems so “out there” but if you take into account the diminishing returns as soon as you go over $1000 you’ll notice the effect of “demand”, “status” and “bling” on the market and its prices. Just for fun. design your DREAM guitar in your head, line up some idea and specs and ask for ballpark prices from your local builders.
My brother in law is a car designer. I dont know how he copes, its such a soul destroying job I think. Not too bad now he is pretty senior but getting there!?
But yeah the guitar itself is pretty unique mix of spec, and as for the price its less than I probably spent on my parts caster oops…
I can imagine, I ran a lot of scenario’s in my head and many ended in having to deliver what a tasteless crowd wanted while sacrificing so much…
I was typing a second alternative option too but dropped it. It was that of a partscaster indeed; find yourself a platform that has great playability and invest in functional upgrades like locking tuners, shiielding and potting, a useful wiring with sound options, perhaps a nice refinish in the colour you want… Some experiments and an interesting discovery has me currently experimenting with a $25 guitar and a $200 pickup that has 6 seprate coils. (long story). It’s racing its way to the top of my list of “guitars for the band” as it sounds great for chugging high gain chords and it’s the quiest thing ever thanks to 3x2 reverse wound coils 
I think a lot of jobs have gone this way. My background is as an application programmer but now if you work for a corporate then most of your time is spent making sure your work complies with x, y and z, plus paperwork of course and very little time solving problems which is the interesting part of the job.
The thing with the DG sig is it’s a license to print money, DG is so well known and well liked. There are some sig models that have you going straight to Wikipedia to find out who they are, and that’s coming from someone with an interest in music (although I do have a blind spot for anything vaguely recent 
)
Its not like there is a gibson option thats affordable I guess for a DG guitar
Interesting views from Trogly, I see his point, a Gibson signature would be $5k or something and epi could have priced this at $1799