Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

mfarnsworth

All Access
  • Posts

    1
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

0 Neutral
  1. mfarnsworth

    ES-339

    I am a long-time owner of many Gibson guitars, most of which were bought new starting in '67. The quality on my new es-339 is both stellar and very disappointing ... I read every review I could find before getting this guitar and many of the things I read turned out to be true plus a few more that I will detail. The finish and colour of the antique sunburst are outstanding and are very reminiscent of my '68 ES-335 which I purchased new in that year. That's the stellar part. Some things that I could do without are the Memphis wiring and the "cheap" case. The Memphis wiring is supposed to keep the top end as you roll volume down but in doing so it changes the tone in an artificial and un-natural way. Try this for yourself ... turn a pickup to 10 with the tone for that pickup on 10 as well. Then hit a note and roll the volume up and down quickly. It sounds similar to a wah pedal. When volume is rolled down the high end will always drop off in any normal circuit because that is a natural function oh human hearing. I find the tone change in the Memphis circuit annoying and not useful. The cheap case I can understand since the guitar is inexpensive compared to a 335 and I guess they had to cut costs somewhere. But, I wish there was an upgrade for a better case from Gibson for this model. The quality of the case is my problem, not Gibson's. Or just price the guitar fairly and then charge extra for the case and have the quality of the case match the quality of the guitar. The photo of the fretboard on this forum that shows grain you could just about park a small car in is accurate as far as my rosewood fretboard goes. The night it arrived I took the strings off and put bore oil on it to try to get the grain to swell and close up a bit and the fretboard soaked up five applications within a few hours. (This is by far the most inferior fretboard I have ever seen from Gibson.) That may sound excessive but I assure it that it was not. The fretboard has yet to yield any of the of the oil back and hasn't even needed to be wiped down since for anything other than my own finger oil from playing. I'm sure it would be happy to drink another few coatings! The frets had file (or Plek?) grinding marks so deep that after a few hours of playing blues bends I had literally filed my way right through a brand-new D'Addario string which broke right at the worst of the frets! So, I had to remove the strings again, tape off the wood and polish the frets until they were at least smooth enough to not do that any more. I haven't broken one since. I did take some close-up photos of how bad the frets were as delivered as proof, however. Just in case anyone wants to see them. The bridge is a sad story, too. The three highest strings have the saddles pulled all the way towards the tailpiece as far as they will go and the intonation is just about accurate. This leaves no room if the guitar changes over the years for adjustments and the saddles need to be moved further in that direction. The holes on the bridge itself are larger than the posts so i have to keep manually shifting the bridge in place to preserve the intonation and also to prevent a rattling sound when it pulls forward into a "loose" position after a lot of string bending. There are lot of sloppy workmanship filing marks on the fretboard binding as others have also reported. I recently bought a made-in-Indonesia Epiphone ES-175 and the workmanship is flawless as is the rosewood used for the fretboard. Nice and tight grain with a good pattern. The pickups were both installed at very strange angles to the strings. Every other two-pickup Gibson I ever owned had the pickups parallel to the strings. These pickups are both at angles I would describe as "wacky" and they are both different from each other. I have close-up photos of that too, if anyone is interested. The only way Gibson's Canadian distributor will address these issues is if I send the guitar back at my own expense ... round trip from where I live that's close to $200 by the time it's properly insured. Or I can drive the eight or so hours to the nearest dealer and pray they will deal with it on the spot while I wait or leave it there and drive the eight hours (each way) again to go pick it up and hope the quality issues have been rectified. Somehow this situation doesn't seem to be what I though Gibson quality was all about from my previous experiences. When I spoke with the Canadian distributor about the bridge problem he told me the dealer would probably swap the faulty bridge for a Tone Pro's bridge ... somehow that doesn't inspire confidence, either. What does this do to the resale value when a potential buyer discovers the original equipment bridge would not properly intonate? I am glad that American labour rates are high but I wish they were buying the quality that Gibson used to be so famous for. You can buy a lot of Asian guitar for the price of a 339 and I made the conscious decision to support American-made Gibson guitars with my purchase, therefore I am also supporting the people who made my guitar. Did they think about how hard I had to work to make the money to buy it when they looked at their work and said "Good enough, ship it!"? I did not play the guitar before I bought it because I live in a very remote region. Does that mean I should not trust Gibson quality? So, I have this ongoing love-hate relationship with my 339. I can re-wire it to the old-style wring then that problem is solved and in fact that choice is mine and not Gibson's problem. I bought their offering with the new style of wiring so that's fair enough. But a sloppy bridge and suspect bridge post placement and inferior fretboard wood with frets that can file their way through strings in a short period of time? A design peculiarity means the pickup screws for the neck pickup aren't properly lined up with the strings ... compare the distance between the neck pickup and the bridge on a Les Paul and a 339 and also where the screws are under the strings and you'll see what I mean. As a result (possibly) the strings needed to be farther out to the edge and when hammering on and pulling off it is very easy for the high E string to be pulled sideways right off the fret ... others have commented on this situation, too. Conceptually, I love the 339. As far as the lacquer job goes, brilliant and top-notch. However, I don't accept that I should "simply be grateful for a cheaper version of a 335" and be silently happy. Yes, go and try one before you buy it! Or, buy it from a dealer who will pay for the return shipping if you aren't happy to avoid spending a lot of cash to "audition" what should be a relatively fine instrument (at that price) without you needing to check it out first to know what you're getting. I can accept a few minor flaws as being partly due to the natural variations in wood and human behavior. But ... I expected a bit more quality than I got and the sticker inside says that the quality is guaranteed. What exactly does that mean? I sincerely hope the folks at Gibson will start reading the various forums other than their own and take more interest in their quality control so they can remain in business plus bring back the level of quality they used to maintain in the era that made it possible for them to still be around today. The clock is ticking. Maybe they should charge more and then spend the additional revenue on quality control? I'd rather pay more and get what I'm expecting to based on my previous very happy Gibson experiences. Three Les Pauls, three SG's, ES-125, ES-175, ES-330, ES-335, etc. ... I have always been loyal to Gibson! But then again I have always been able to intonate my brand-new guitars!
×
×
  • Create New...