OffsetGuitars.com

Namm 2020 y'all

https://guitar.com/news/namm-2020-epiph ... ollection/

Nice! I wish they would do maple necks and/or volutes. I know it isn't traditional, but it makes the necks much stronger. I get historic in many ways, but not when it causes physical issues.

Why didn't they put the Vibrola on the Firebird?

Zork wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 12, 2020 5:36 am

Why didn't they put the Vibrola on the Firebird?

That's what Im saying..

These still aren’t for me, but that old headstock has been awful for years.

Meh. Still looks pretty ugly, imo. No knock on the quality of the guitars because most of the Epiphones I've played have been pretty consistent, but I've never liked any of their headstocks.

It's a nice improvement on the Less Pawl that's all trimmed-out and bound. I kinda wish my Sheraton had that same shape and inlay...

overall, it seems a pretty good idea from a marketing perspective. They've had a great run, making very good guitars - seems like these up-ticks address a lot of the short-comings that turn people off.

I think what people have been asking for is to just put the Gibson headstock on there, not some other thing from a different brand back in the day.

Or maybe just the cool and unique old Epiphone headstocks from back in the day? It's not like they didn't have some classics.

But the Kalamazoo line headstocks? Is that what I'm seeing? No idea why they brought those back.

It gets the chumps talking, I guess.

It's just too small. If it would be just a tiny bit bigger I would really like it. That Pelham Blue SG with P90s speaks to me.

Guitar.com wrote:Of course, Epiphone is about more than just Gibson-derived instruments – the brand has created many iconic instruments in its long and storied history, and those guitars are represented by the new Epiphone Original collection.

I'm really interested in this, much more than another Les Paul or SG.

FWIW I think the headstock is a great improvement while keeping Epiphone separate from Gibson, keep in mind the brand has its own history. I think the headstock absolutely works, in fact, I think it works better on the SG’s (especially the Special) than the Gibson headstock. I only ever thought the clipped headstock they’re getting rid of only ever looked good on a Sheraton and it’s enlarged on them.

Maybe I am a little thick/dumb today ... but I do not understand.

As shown below there are three different Kalamazoo Epiphone headstock variants.
The initial one similar to the normal Gibson headstock, as shown with my Sorrento this also had the bikini plate.
The next variation is a slight elongation of the first, without the plate.
The last is the hourglass version that we all know.

So how is THIS particular headstock that Gibson is now using on epi gtrs "the" Kalamazoo headstock?
They all are ...

I like the '61 one.

Are there really people who want to buy an Epi but are turned off by the headstocks? I'll admit I've never owned an Epi or a Gibson but in 20 years of staring at guitars online I've never noticed more of a difference between the two companies than I've noticed within the same company over time.

Weird that they use a different shape in the first place. I mean, imagine if Fender used a slimmed-down shape on all the Squiers. That would look pretty stupid.

Then again, Fender seems to have enough confidence in their MIM, MIA, and even MIC lines to sell based on specs and decal that they don't have to gimp the headstocks on their Squiers to make them less desirable.

I'll agree that the Pelham Blue SG with P90s looks hot af. I would not kick that guitar out of bed.

sookwinder wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 12, 2020 6:29 pm

Maybe I am a little thick/dumb today ... but I do not understand.

As shown below there are three different Kalamazoo Epiphone headstock variants.
The initial one similar to the normal Gibson headstock, as shown with my Sorrento this also had the bikini plate.
The next variation is a slight elongation of the first, without the plate.
The last is the hourglass version that we all know.

So how is THIS particular headstock that Gibson is now using on epi gtrs "the" Kalamazoo headstock?
They all are ...

I guess I might be a little dumb today also because I was assuming that they were using the headstock from one of the various guitars that they sold under the "Kalamazoo" name over the years.

You can see what I'm talking about here for an example, but I seem to have been misunderstanding.

I don't know what's up with these headstocks. I can say that I like what Gibson is doing with Epiphone, it seems that they are heading in a direction where the Epiphone guitars are considered to be every bit as well made as Gibsons, but you get the benefit of overseas construction keeping the cost down.

If you call that a benefit. You know what I mean.

Regardless, back in the day Epiphones were pretty bad guitars, and that turned me off the brand permanently. But now I feel like there are any number of things made under that marque that I would consider buying.