Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar 

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

In a very short period of time the ES 339 PRO has become my favorite quitar. I can't believe that I waited so long to purchase one. I have three other Epiphone's, a Sheraton II, SG 400 and an Emperor Joe Pass signiture model. This new ES 339 is leading the pack!!

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

I have been a working musician for fifty years now and I have played many different guitars. Most of my electric guitars have been solid bodies so I can only compare this to two of my ex-guitars. This guitar is more comfortable than my falcon, and 335 were. They were beautiful and fabulous sounding but they were just too big. I did not want to put out 2300 for the other model so I thought I would start with this one. I am so glad I did that. This guitar has been the perfect replacement. Feels and sounds good (I did have a pro set-up done but I expected to do that anyway. Every guitar I have owned has had this done to it. If your thinking of a hollow body electric pick up one of these babies--you will be happily surprised.

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

- Excellent fit/finish/feel. All bound and the black finish is flawless
- Grover deluxe tuners
- Alnico magnet split coil pickups
- Decent setup (I might lower the action a hair)
- Sounds loud and crisp acoustically with nice intonation
- Plugged in the humbuckers ROCK. Lots of tone and headroom
- In Split coil mode the pickups sound like a Mexican strat. Not bad at all.
- Using one pickup in humbucker mode and one in split sounds really interesting.

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

My latest project is a retro-psychedelic '60's band and this guitar fills the bill to perfection. I hear the tones of so many guitarists of that age with this guitar.

Straight out of the box it needed a little clean-up. I took a Scotch-Brite pad to the frets after removing the original strings. The fretboard was a little dried out so I used a little furniture oil. I lowered the action some while re-stringing it and checked the length of the neck for the fret-buzz I had heard about from other reviews. There was none. I did have a little intonation issue with a couple of the strings but was able to adjust them to nearly perfect. I had read about some quality-control issues from some other reviews, so I went over the guitar with a fine-tooth comb. The flaws I found were so minor as to be totally inconsequential.

It has a very nice clear tone, and with the coil taps, it has an almost biting tone. Of course, it goes the other way to some very nice warm jazzy tones too. This guitar has more tonal versitility - without resorting to pedals and rack effects - than any guitar I have ever owned.

I will still gig with my LP, but it is definitely going to be sharing time with this ES-339. I am also a blues player and this guitar just sings with a little overdrive. A great pallette of blues tones.

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

This guitar is better made than other Epiphones i have tried. I believe it all comes down to which factory in China is making them, and this model seems to have been born on a good assembly line.
The pickups are the big story: not too muddy and not too harsh. Works better for rock and a bit of distortion than country/pure jazz in my opinion, but thats fine as i plan to use a tube screamer much of the time. I actually compared this to the more expensive competition (Ibanez AM-93) and prefer these pickups as being lass harsh. Plus the single coil option performs well. On some guitars the pickups just dont work well when split, not so here. Good construction, though not as pretty as some of its more expensive competition. But this aint no beauty show is it?

Downside: if you want some control-able feedback, as I do, you will need to crank the amp before the body starts to resonate. (The Ibanez AS series is a bit more alive and of course the Ibanez AF/AG series even more so). I prefer body feedback to pickup feedback, to each his own. Also, tunes work fine but why the sharp edges?

These are minor complaints: guitar is well worth the price and then some. Buy. Enjoy. Repeat as necessary.

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

Fantastic guitar for everyone from beginner to pro. Needs a few minor adjustments out of the box, i.e., action, intonation and the rough fretboard. It sounds as good as a Les Paul Custom and plays the same. A nice variety of tones from a semi-hollow--one of the best I've ever played.

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

Not so good: Guitar arrived straight in the epiphone box. Frets had oxidation on them, and required polishing with 0000 steel wool (be sure to carefully tape off fretboard). Intonation was surprisingly bad, and required flipping one of the saddles. "A" string has slight fret buzz (not bad) but the other strings are fine. Looks like fret dressing would solve, but not bad enough to warrant it yet. Fret board very dry, looks and feels much better now after oiling. Strings sound dull, but strings are cheap. All in all, 45 minutes of pre-work before playing. The Good: This thing sounds fantastic. Quite dark clean, but comes to life in front of an overdriven tube amp. Sustain for days, musical sounding feedback but very controllable. Through my 5 watt home-built tube amp and 10" red fang speaker, the tone is thick and loud, with tons of harmonic overtones. Through my heavily modded Hot Rod Deluxe, it needs the bright switch on, but sounds powerful and complex with the bridge solo'd and cuts through a loud band like crazy. Through my old stock 75 watt Traynor, this makes the perfect guitar for a two-piece rock outfit. Fills in the bass frequencies nicely. The split coil sounds are quieter and brighter, just like a single coil. Very useful clean, and when run through an OD pedal, they help to slightly clean up your sounds without taking too much volume away. The so-so: The pots and switch feel clunky, and make audible 'click' when switching mid song. When switch is in middle, if one volume is all the way down, no sound comes out. The volumes are hard to balance to get a mixed sound at anything other than both full up. Not sure what causes this, as I don't have this problem with my old SG with similar setup. Overall: This is a very cool guitar for the money. If you are capable of very minor setup changes, and have a fairly bright sounding amp, you will love this thing.

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

I didn't intend to hold onto my Epiphone ES-339 as I already have 2 ES-335's. Sadly, this is a VERY seductive guitar. The coil taps on BOTH pickups give you an authentic Casino sound, though this isn't a full hollow body. This DOES do the job of at least two guitars and looks great doing it. I wouldn't mind it if they bound the "f" holes but I'm nitpicking here. If you play guitars instead of logos on headstocks, this is well worth owning.

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

Well finished and only minor setup adjustments needed. Plays really easy stock. Nice chrome and finishing. Good looking woods, nice F-hole detail, binding is creamy. Tuners are not modern ratio, but are very smooth and positive.

Comes with coil tap on both pickups separately, which is nice! Over-all a very good value and I took a barely used one for a nice discount, yet got a guitar in my preferred color that had no marks at all on it. I'm happy. To me, this is a better choice than the Midtown or the ES335

Comments about Epiphone ES-339 PRO Electric Guitar:

For the price... it is a very nice playing guitar once you set it up correctly. Out of the box...no. Intonation was way off. Fixed that problem easily.
As for the string buzz. I had to loosen the truss rod a quarter turn out for more relief. Then I re-tuned and let it set for a day and all is now good.
The frets are kinda rough and will need a good polishing when I change strings.

But no big problems. It's a keeper.
It sounds awesome out of my 68 Super Reverb.