Attention €piphone buyers

[jeff]

Just want to point this out to any potential Epiphone buyer out there.
 When buying a made in China Epiphone, pay close attention to the neck where it meets the headstock. On the one I got is appears that they sanded too far while sanding the back of the headstock and actually dug into the neck right behind the 1st fret. The result is the neck feels flat and thinner when plating in the 1st position and round and full along the rest of the neck and it doesn't feel too good. Might not bother you if you hang your thumb over the neck but feels like crap if you play with your thumb in the center of the neck.
Just something to be aware of.(wish I had felt it before I walked out of the store with it)
 

  So please, I need your help, next time you go to a guitar store check this out. Maybe It's just me but if you feel the same thing I do and think it feels like crap too, take the time to write to Epiphone. Tell the shopowners. If enough people and dealers contact Epiphone we may get them to investigate and fix the problem.

 We can all sit around and say "It's a shame they don't make 'em like they used to" or we can all write in, let our voices be heard, and say "We won't accept this sloppy workmanship" and hopefully change the way Epi makes guitars!

If you think these MIC necks feel like crap too, let Epiphone know.
Guitarists of the world unite!!!

[jeff]

Thanks but I'm talking about the back of the neck; the profile.
The guitat feels great from the highest note down to the 2nd fret but right at the 1st fret the profile is thinner and flat. I know the neck has to transition from being round to being flat at the back of the headstock but the MIC ones are very sloppy. Whereas every other Epi guitar I ever owned or played that transition occurs more towards the headstock where you can't feel it, the MIC ones start right about the 1st fret. There is an actual dip in the neck and it is much thinner when playing in 1st position than in any other position.
 
Next time you're in a music store grab a bunch of €piphone guitars and see if you can feel it. May be just one bad proudction run??? But I've felt em in MA and CT and my bro, who lives in TN, said they have some down there too.

[G._Hoffman]

You bought this new?  Return it.  Or you can take it to a warranty center, and see if you can get a replacement from Epiphone.  If they still have them available, there is a good chance they will replace it for you, but it will probably take a month or two to get the new guitar.  Returning it to the dealer (or exchange, if they have one), is probably easier.  Either way, they do warranty their guitars for defects in workmanship and material for a limited period of time.  I can't remember if it is 90 days, 1 year, 2 years, or 5 years, but I would suspect one of the shorter periods.  For a warranty replacement, make sure you bring in your original sales receipt, or a copy of it.


Gabriel

[jeff]

 Thanks for the advice. I'm pretty sure I'm screwed but my intent was to  ask as many guitarists to check it out for themselves and be aware before they buy one.
And if you feel that Epiphone quality is going down the toilet to write in.
Maybe if epiphone gets enough complaints, they'll correct the problem. 
I don't want to have to tell my grandkids "Back in my day Epiphone necks felt good".
 They can't fix a problem they don't knonw about and they won't fix a problem until they get enough complaints.

[jeff]

Yep! This would be the perfect guitar if I played with a capo 
Maybe Epiphone should market the ES-339 to capo players.
"€piphone- for those who just don't care what that end of the neck feels like"
 

[alerich]

Are you referring to any current Epiphone model or just the ES-339? I don't often even touch the new Epiphone stuff (literally - I never even pick them up) but I'll give then a once over the next time I am in GC. I have a fondness for the 1989 Epi Les Paul models that Samick manufactured for them (with the attractive tapered open book headstock shown below). Incredible guitars. I have four of them. The only current production Epi I have is a Jr. that was manufactured in Indonesia and the neck is normal. Nice little guitar, period - not just for the price.

I'll check some out the next time I go window shopping. Now I am curious, too.

[HotBluePlates]

Just want to point this out to any potential Epiphone buyer out there.
 When buying a made in China Epiphone ...

Umm, don't buy any made in China Epiphone. Take your guitar back to the store and demand a replacement or a refund.

I worked at Gibson (in Nashville, and at the Epiphone plant next door to it) in the late-90's and up to 2000. Things may have changed since then, but I doubt it.

Epiphone uses a multitude of overseas factories, each with highly varying levels of quality. If I was to buy any Epiphone, I'd look at the serial number and see that it started with an "S" which indicates the guitar was made in Korea at the Samick factory. Smaick had consistently excellent guitars for the price. There were maybe 13 different Korean factories when I was there, some of them truly horrible. The Chinese-made guitars were just starting to show up and were a mess. If you saw pictures of their "Factory" as we did, you'd be appalled.

Epiphone management worked under the notion they were producing to a price-point, not to make the best guitars possible. The model was to source guitars from ever-cheaper overseas factories, have them shipping to the Nashville warehouse, where they were inspected, re-strung and setup for shipment to dealers. Flaws found during inspection would cause a guitar to be sent to the Repair department to make them "sell-able" or the guitars were scrapped. If a single factory, model or shipment had too-large a percentage of scrapped guitars, the inspection standard was lowered to allow more guitars to pass as sellable. The whole process generally angered and demoralized workers like me; I ultimately quite and was re-hired over at the Gibson factory.

The management justified sliding low-quality guitars through the process because, "we're not getting a lot of returns from dealers." If you don't take the guitar back to the dealer & demand a better guitar or a refund, with the dealer then complaining to Epiphone about un-sellable inventory, Epiphone will never change their approach.

NOTE: There was one dealer Epiphone never pulled any of this stuff with; Yamano of Japan. Yamano always demanded the highest quality possible, and if we had to sort through 100 guitars to find 1 which met their demanded level of quality to fill their order, we were directed to do it. Why? Yamano would inspect every guitar shipped to them, and might refuse receipt of an entire shipment for 1 sub-standard guitar. Made no difference if the guitar was a Custom Shop, Gibson or Epiphone model. All were held to nearly-same standards. So Gibson and Epiphone cherry-picked to fill Yamano's orders.

But like I said, the Samick-made Epiphone had consistently high build quality for the price (Samick also made just a few models, generally the most expensive Epiphone models).

[alerich]

Epiphone management worked under the notion they were producing to a price-point, not to make the best guitars possible.

That's what I love about the E series Squier guitars made in Japan. The Japanese evidently did not understand the concept of Fender versus Squier. They just knew how to build a great guitar. I have an 1987 Squier Strat with a Schaller manufactured System 1 tremolo and it is the bomb. Personally, I think a lot of the made in Mexico Fenders are actually really nice guitars.

The whole Epiphone/Squier model is in fact designed to meet a certain price point but Gibson/Epiphone just got a little carried away with the concept and cut corners on quality control. I think that quality control across the entire Gibson line has suffered, to be honest.

[jeff]

Take your guitar back to the store and demand a replacement or a refund.

Tried that. The repair guy told me that because all 3 339s he had were like this that this"must be the way they're desigining them". They said it's "not that bad" and actually said that you could put bondo on it and reshape it but there's nothing "wrong" with it, it's just a different "style" and that for some reason they decided to make them like that. he started feeding me some BS that they are all made on CNC machines today so if all three have this divit that's just the way they're supposed to feel. It's inconcivible to him that all 3 are the same because all 3 were made in the same factory probally on the same run all 3 aren't the same because all 3 were sloppily made
 ...Bondo! ... I mean he acutally said I guess you could use bondo and reshape it in one breath and there's nothing wrong with it because we've got 2 more just like it in the next.
 I said take down anyother guitar and compare it to this one. €very one working there said they felt what I was talking about but all they kept saying that the ES 339 just has a different "style" neck and I just gotta get used to it. One guy actually showed me how to contort my thumb to avoid this spot while playing!
The manager said he would take it back but now, since now it's not a "new" guitar it's a "used" guitar I'd have to give hime the guitar back plus $100 to get another guitar of equal value. I asked them to at least contact Epiphone but they wouldn't. To them it's my problem not theirs.
They don't see this as a problem. The see this as there's nothing wrong with your lumpy necked guitar there's something wrong with you because you don't like the lumpy 339s style neck. just get used to it.

 So my hole point is not to bitch about it but to ask you guys for help changing the way Epi makes and sells guitars. See for yourself and if you feel the way I do write in and say something because the dealers aren't saying anything. They're saying that's just the way it is and complaints to them fall on deaf ears . If enough comsumers write in this may change but if we take what they give us, it won't   

Are you referring to any current Epiphone model or just the ES-339?

All the 339s I've seen so far and about 1 in 10 other models. Some SGs have it some don't. some LPs have it some don't.

That's the part I don't get. If all Epiphone necks felt like this, then yeah, I get it, that's just the way Epiphone necks feel. Just be aware some are good some aren't so check this spot out before you buy one.   
 

[HotBluePlates]

Take your guitar back to the store and demand a replacement or a refund.

Tried that. The repair guy told me that because all 3 339s he had were like this that this"must be the way they're desigining them". 

Ask for the owner. Start screaming at them. It's up to you if you want to be ripped off or get what you pay for. If you have no shame and make a big enough scene, they'll give you whatever you want. Tell them you'll be spamming Facebook and guitar forums about not buying from them.

And don't deal with a repair guy; get a salesman or the store owner. The repair guy doesn't care because there's no money in it for him. The store doesn't want to deal with it because Epiphone ain't going to actually fix it; at best, they'll send another of the same guitar. Depending on which model it is, it will likely have the exact same flaw (some models were made by several factories, some came from only a single factory).

he started feeding me some BS that they are all made on CNC machines today so if all three have this divit that's just the way they're supposed to feel. It's inconcivible to him that all 3 are the same because all 3 were made in the same factory probally on the same run all 3 aren't the same because all 3 were sloppily made

BS!! We had whole shipments from China with the headstock scroll tilted 10-15 degrees!! Crooked! And the managers still sent them out to stores, "because we can't scrap a whole shipment."

In 2000, the Chinese factory had dirt floors, all the workers sat on 5-gallon paint buckets, and they whittled the guitars out by hand. No templates, fixtures, etc. It's a wonder they got anything right. Largely, they didn't. And I'm not bs-ing; our plant manager showed us pictures from the Chinese factory tour, mainly to say we should feel grateful for how nice things were in the US Epi plant (when morale was universally low due to crap quality).

Epiphone management worked under the notion they were producing to a price-point, not to make the best guitars possible.

That's what I love about the E series Squier guitars made in Japan. The Japanese evidently did not understand the concept of Fender versus Squier.

Epiphone first had Japanese factory vendors. But the price was too high for the retail price point, and they shifted to Korean factories for something cheaper. When I was there, there were still a few Japanese-made acoustic guitars. But they were old stock which hadn't sold yet, and just sat on a shelf in the warehouse.

Anyway, at the end of my time there, the Chinese electric guitars started showing up, as well as the Indonesian acoustic guitars. All were straight garbage.

So my hole point is not to bitch about it but to ask you guys for help changing the way Epi makes and sells guitars. See for yourself and if you feel the way I do write in and say something because the dealers aren't saying anything.

Nothing will work except not buying from Epiphone. And take the guitar back & force the dealer to refund your money.

1. Gibson/Epiphone senior management, Henry Juszkiewicz and David Berryman doesn't give 2 sh!ts about quality. They care about squeezing out every dollar. TONS of disgruntled Gibson employees who love the guitars but hate how the company is run.

2. The dealer is between a rock & a hard place. If you want to stock Gibson at all, the policy was you had to buy the whole line, Epiphone, acoustic, etc, along with the Les Pauls you really wanted to stock. Now you've got a bunch of money tied up in these guitars. You gotta sell them. If you're not a national chain or a sole distributor for a country, you don't have the best price terms. And if you rock the boat and send stuff back, you risk not being able to fill future orders. The store buying 20 guitars a year has very much less bargaining power with Gibson than a company buying 5000+ guitars  year. And I've personally seen the discussions when the Epi QC guy was with a floor manager picking out guitars for a specific order for a high-volume dealer, where they had to cherry-pick the least-crappiest guitars of a run from a crap factory.

Anyway, my experience was the guys at the bottom of the food-chain inspecting and setting up the Epi guitars, or the folks actually working on the Gibson factory floor, took high quality very seriously. The top management could just as well be selling printer ink, guitars were just a commodity to be exploited.

[alerich]

I was in GC Saturday afternoon. I "felt up" about a dozen various different new Epiphones but could not discern the neck anomaly that you described. They were mostly Les Paul model Guitars.

As an aside, GC was flaunting the new 2015 Gibson line with it's hideous "Les Paul scribbled in Sharpie©" headstock label and the even more hideous huge price increase. I think a Les Paul Standard I saw was about three grand.

What we wouldn't do to have Norlin back at the reins again, eh?

[jeff]

OK, I know I'm gonna sound like a conspiracy nut job here... but here we go....
 
The guitar I have it the DOT ES-339. I can't find a trace of that model all I can find it the ES-339 PRO.
The ES-339 PRO is described as having a Slim Taper D Profile Neck the neck on the DOT ES-339 is pretty thick
 
 So here's what I'm thinking
-Epiphone had the DOT ES-339s made
-Someone noticed this problem with the neck
-Instead of scrapping those guitars they sanded them down to the lowest point, refinnished them and resold them as the ES-339 PRO with the Slim Taper D Profile Neck
-Some of the DOT ES-339s with the neck diviot got out to market and I just happen to be one of the unlucky bastards who got one
 
I know, I know. That sounds crazy but why can't I find the DOT ES-339 anywhere on their website, only the ES-339 PRO?
Why is the ES-339 PRO the exact same guitar as the DOT ES-339 but with the Slim Taper D Profile Neck?   
I got no problem with them sanding, refinnishing them, and selling them as PROs if that's in fact what they did. That just makes sense and there's nothing wrong with that. ...but it kinda sucks for the people who got one of ones they didn't catch
 
It just seems odd to me that I can't find the DOT ES-339.

[jeff]

What you see is marketing.  Take a mistake and relabel it..
....Do your purchase documents indicate ES-339 Pro, and not DOT ES-339?  If so complain to the your state's attorney general, and file a bait and switch.

No, that's not what I mean. Not take a mistake and relabel it. That would be like selling it as a feature.(first fret capo stabilizer)

And it's not a bait and switch. I didn't order a PRO but get a DOT
 
 What I mean is, say you had a wherehouse of guitars with a flaw on the neck. Now you could sand down the entire neck so it feels right and refinnish it. Now it's a prefectally good guitar but just has a slightly thinner neck. Now in order to designate the ones you've corrected rename them. But  DOT ES-339 v2.0 sounds kinda wierd, so call the fixed ones the ES-339 PRO. They're not gonna do a re-call but on the mistakes that did get out but by renaming 'em they would know which is which. All the ones marked DOT went to market before you fixed 'em all the ones marked PRO were ones you caught before they went to market and fixed.

I dunno, this is just a theory. It's possible. Seems like a reasonable solution to me.

[sluckey]

Jeff, would you post a hi-rez pic of the actual guitar showing exactly what you're talking about?

[HotBluePlates]

The guitar I have it the DOT ES-339. I can't find a trace of that model all I can find it the ES-339 PRO.
The ES-339 PRO is described as having a Slim Taper D Profile Neck the neck on the DOT ES-339 is pretty thick

Their descriptions generally have little bearing on reality.

The "ES-339 P-90 Pro" has a Dot inlay neck. What's different about your guitar from the one pictured on the website?

So here's what I'm thinking
-Epiphone had the DOT ES-339s made
-Someone noticed this problem with the neck
-Instead of scrapping those guitars they sanded them down to the lowest point, refinnished them and resold them as the ES-339 PRO with the Slim Taper D Profile Neck

Unless there have been radical changes in Nashville, this is not possible. There were no facilities for finishing any guitars at the Nashville Epi plant. As a former employee, I can guarantee you they wouldn't scrap any guitar just for a divot in the neck.

If they took the guitar out of the shipping box and the headstock was broken off (seen it happen), or if the fretboard had insufficient glue such that it separated from the rest of the neck in shipping (seen it on literally a hundred guitars), then they'd scrap it.

Look inside the f-hole: there should be a label with the model on it. Epiphone wouldn't change these labels in the U.S.; they don't even have such labels on hand. Whatever the label says it what the guitar is from the factory of origin.

It's also not uncommon to see "official names" different from what's on the guitar's label.

[HotBluePlates]

What you see is marketing.  Take a mistake and relabel it..
....Do your purchase documents indicate ES-339 Pro, and not DOT ES-339?  If so complain to the your state's attorney general, and file a bait and switch.

What I mean is, say you had a wherehouse of guitars with a flaw on the neck. Now you could sand down the entire neck so it feels right and refinnish it. Now it's a prefectally good guitar but just has a slightly thinner neck.

Epiphone wouldn't do that. Take it from a former employee

Their highest costs are for their U.S. labor hours. The warehouse has a shipping dock, an area for "Tweakers" and a repair area. Guitars come in the shipping dock, might go into warehouse storage. Shipping dock personnel pull guitars to match dealer orders and drop them in the tweaker area. Tweakers unbox the guitar, inspect it for obvious/major finish & structural defects, cut the strings off (corroded green during ship-board transport), and buff the guitar if there are scratches. Then they install new strings, adjust the neck and bridge to match setup specs. Then quickly play each string at each fret (with a kind of chromatic exercise). Tweakers also fix minor defects, like trash in the finish or a high/low nut slot or high/low fret.

Tweakers have a production number of guitars to set up each day, around 21-22 in an 8-hour shift. There's not a lot of time to sort out problems, and most guitars have problems (they shouldn't, but do). Questionable defects like a divot in the neck get referred to the QC guy, who may say it's passable. If a lot of guitars have been rejected for it, a manager is likely to tell the QC guy "bad yesterday, passable today." Reject guitars, or guitars that you work on but need bigger repair eat lots of time but don't count towards your production number for the day.

The repair department fixes some major issues, but not everything. Fret leveling across big sections of the fretboard, jiggering twisted necks into being "passably playable," filling fingerboard chips, that sort of thing. They're not gonna shave or refinish anything. They probably won't pull frets and properly shave a fretboard to fix humps in it, because it takes too much time and they don't re-install frets. They might fix minor finish problems like buffing burns with a lacquer pen, but major prolems like black spray trash in the middle of a sunburst will either cause the guitar to be scrapped or for trash to be passable that day depending on how many have been rejected.

As a tweaker, as you set up guitars they go back in the shipping box and sit for QC inspection. QC guy does a visual, measures string height, plays each string at each fret. Things that were passable yesterday might be called out as failing today. If there is string buzz, you take it and fix it, but it still counts as 1 guitar done. If the failure was some other issue not fixable by the tweaker, it might go to repair; also doesn't count towards your numbers. QC standards which shifted daily were a MAJOR cause for hate at the Epi warehouse.

My point is don't assume Epi wants to put out the best product. It's 100% about price point and manhours to them. They wouldn't spend the time to fix a divot in a neck because that takes too much time and adds to a guitar's cost. Instead if the shipment had neck-divots, it becomes the "new normal" until guitars come in without the divot.

BTW, did you register your guitar's warranty at Epiphone's site (click warranty button at the top right of the screen)? You may need to make a warranty claim on their website.

You might have to initiate a warranty claim through Epiphone's website or by calling them, which is why I asked.

[jeff]

Their descriptions generally have little bearing on reality.

The "ES-339 P-90 Pro" has a Dot inlay neck. What's different about your guitar from the one pictured on the website?

Look inside the f-hole: there should be a label with the model on it. Epiphone wouldn't change these labels in the U.S.; they don't even have such labels on hand. Whatever the label says it what the guitar is from the factory of origin.

It's also not uncommon to see "official names" different from what's on the guitar's label.

The Label on mine says DOT ES-339 but I wrote to them and they wrote back that my serial number corresponds to a ES-339 PRO.
I just couldn't understand the discrepency between my label which says DOT ES-339 and the model name ES-339 PRO. But I see what you're saying that it's not uncommon of for the names not to be right. Just struck me as wierd at first.

Yes HBP I did register the guitar. I don't want to pay to ship it only for them to say it's not bad enough to give me another one. They refered me to a warrany center. A bit of a drive but I'm gonna see what they say.

 I may have to live with it but I guess it's my own fault for not noticing it in the store before I bought it. Sounds like Epi could care less if my neck is a little lumpy.

[Jim Coash]

I think I would describe this as a "buyer beware" or a "get what you pay for" scenario.  I owned an Epiphone guitar and I found it rather good but that was a long time ago.  Like all other manufacturers, the name "Epiphone" has gone through many changes.  The Greek immigrant who lent his name (Epi) to the line is long gone.  When he designed and built guitars in his own factory they were well made and he stood behind them.  When Gibson bought the name they wanted a way to sell their slightly cheaper guitars without sullying the Gibson name.  They also produced a line of "Kalamazoo" instruments for the same reason.  Technically, many of those instruments were made on the same line by the same people but when they were deemed not quite worthy of the Gibson name, they became something else.  Most of them were actually very good instruments.  When Gibson sold out, Epiphone also became a homeless entity.  Since then there have been multiple owners and a wide variety of quality levels produced.  When I see an Epiphone for sale I contact the owner to find out what I can.  If I like the answers I get, I go to see and play the instrument.  That is the only way you can judge what you get.  They vary wildly from near Gibson/Heritage quality to downright cheesy.  I have made offers on guitars I wouldn't play and got them so cheap that I would give them to friends and relatives who have asked me to find an instrument for them.  My guitars, all made at 225 parsons Street in Kalamazoo, are fine players, collectible and quite valuable.   When I need something adjusted I take it to them.  Rarely do they even charge me.  Often I get it tweaked, upgraded, re-strung and buffed for a pittance.  This is why I buy quality, not price.  Jim