I recently bought an Epiphone Dot, made at the Quingdao Plant. A very well made guitar, not only in regard to the price point, but in general - and a pleasure to play. I like the neck profile a lot.
What surprised me most were the pickups - they are actually pretty good. I used to have two gibson SG models in the past, one with the 490 R and T, the other with a Classic 57 (neck) and a Dirty Fingers (bridge). At that time I compared them both to an Korean 2002 Epi SG which belonged to a friend. And to be honest - I liked the guitar, but the pickups sounded muddy and liveless to me compared to the Gibsons.
But - as some users wrote before - those newer Epiphone Humbuckers are really nice sounding units. They are way better than the old ones in the Korean models.
After reading the comments here, I also tried some adjustment. As I said, l liked the sound right away, but wished it would be just a little more 'crispy', 'open' or 'lively'.
Lowering the pickups in their frame and adjusting the height of the pole-pieces to each string individually really did it - I did not know this could make such a big difference!
I also agree, there's no need to change PUs in this fine guitar. Swapping PUs might be a good idea in some cases, but in general it is overrated; at least that's my point of view. As long as you've got a decent amp, even intermediate pickups on a budget guitar can sound quite good. And the Epi Humbuckers are much better than intermediate.
The Dot sounds different from an ES 335, I'd say a bit more on the darker or more smokey side, which suits at least my style of playing, since I prefer bluesy and jazzy clean sounds with only some crunch added occasionally. Works great with a Twin Reverb for example. It doesn't sound 'worse' or 'inferior' compared to a Gibson - just different.
