seattleguy

Hi, Well my journey continues. I went ahead and ordered an Ultra 339 Pelham blue from GC and in less than a week it came in… I was real excited as this one didn’t have too much fret buzz (it was there but something I could have lived with) but unfortunately I had to return it for another as the paint in and around the F hole was still tacky and bubbly, and had imprinted finger print marks surrounding the hole. Bummer. So I packed it back up and ordered a replacement. I then waited another week for the second one, and unfortunately I had to return that guitar as the knobs for the nanomag on the back of the guitar were stuck, the treble knob, and only turned on eighth of the way for the bass. Also on the inside wall of the F hole there was a large crescent shaped splinter chunk of hanging wood, about one half and inches wide and three quarters of an inch long on the underside of the top. I then returned that one in hopes of getting a quality guitar the third time. I've been having a real tough time finding a guitar without some returnable quality issues – is the something that the rest of you have seen?

Hi, I’ve been on quite a journey trying to find and EPI Ultra 339 that doesn’t have fret buzz on the 6th E, and sometimes 5th A as well, bass strings. I’ve visited all 4 guitar center shops (and one guitar show) in the Seattle area and tried out a total of eleven Ultra 339’s and every single one of them had serious fret buzzing. I’ve even had them run a couple guitars through their “pro-setup” installation prior to buying, and even after that, the buzzing still exists. In both cases the sales rep said there was nothing more they could do and if I wanted the guitar I would just have to deal with it…. I’ve also called out to two surrounding independent music shops and had them test their guitars only to find that those also had the same fret buzz. One shop has returned all ( a total of five) Ultra 339’s, and stated that this is a manufactures defect in that the neck angle is wrong, and is no longer going to carry them until they get an assurance from their Epiphone rep that the issue is fixed. I’ve called up Gibson support and they told me they haven’t heard of the issue and could only say that I should take the guitar to an authorized Epiphone dealer to fix after purchasing the item. I certainly don’t want to go through the hassle of returning/fixing/returning/fixing guitars until I get on that works… I don’t think that this is just me having this issue as in reading some reviews and blogs on the Ultra 339 this does seem to be a common issue, just google “epiphone ultra 339 fret buzz”. To reproduce the issue just press the E bass string on the third fret and pluck the string… Does anyone know where I can find an Ultra 339 without fret buzz? Or does anyone know how to fix the issue? thank you!