Masterbilt mistake

[brannon67]

Everyone knows that Epiphone Masterbilt quit making the AJ500M and R's and alot of their other models. Personally I feel that it was a huge mistake on Epiphone's part, but hey, what do I know, Im not upper management or CEO of Epiphone guitars, so I have no say so. I thought the Masterbilts were huge sellers, especially the AJ models. How do you guys feel about this. Mistake, good, etc?

[GuitarLight]

I own a trio of Masterbilts....AJ-500R, and AJ-500M and the still in production DR-500MCE.. I have never owned three finer guitars in my life and count myself very lucky to have them. I prefer them over every other brand including Martin, Taylor and Gibson...and I have owned several of each of those. They are sold off now. The Masterbilts are all I will ever need. It did take three guitars of each model to find a good one, and the hunt was on for some time till I attained three non-defective ones....but once I found them, I realized I liked them better than every other model I have ever owned in the last 30 years. I owned 25 guitars before these with makes like Martin HD-28....Martin EC-00028.....three Taylors including a 900 series and an 800 series and three more others...three gibsons...SJ-200 and Gibson AJ reissue...and Gibson Woody Guthrie AJ hog. They are all gone now...sold..and not missed for one minute. My Masterbilts were better than them all. People may disagree and scoff at me on this, but they were my guitars, and I would never have sold them off if I did not like my Masterbilts better...Never! The DR-500mce hog is still available and I would recommend anyone who wants a Masterbilt to get one before they also go extinct. They are excellent guitars!...far, far above the norm for their price range, and able to compete with any....and I do mean ANY high end guitar in the world, onstage or off. ...HELLO!....Gibson, can you hear me!...HELLO!...EPIPHONE?...ANYBODY! HELLO! CAN YOU HEAR ME?......HELLO GIBSON!...HELLO EPIPHONE?....CAN YOU HEAR ME?????? !!!

[DennisB643]

I own a trio of Masterbilts....AJ-500R, and AJ-500M and the still in production DR-500MCE.. I have never owned three finer guitars in my life and count myself very lucky to have them. I prefer them over every other brand including Martin, Taylor and Gibson...and I have owned several of each of those. They are sold off now. The Masterbilts are all I will ever need. It did take three guitars of each model to find a good one, and the hunt was on for some time till I attained three non-defective ones....but once I found them, I realized I liked them better than every other model I have ever owned in the last 30 years. I owned 25 guitars before these with makes like Martin HD-28....Martin EC-00028.....three Taylors including a 900 series and an 800 series and three more others...three gibsons...SJ-200 and Gibson AJ reissue...and Gibson Woody Guthrie AJ hog. They are all gone now...sold..and not missed for one minute. My Masterbilts were better than them all. People may disagree and scoff at me on this, but they were my guitars, and I would never have sold them off if I did not like my Masterbilts better...Never! The DR-500mce hog is still available and I would recommend anyone who wants a Masterbilt to get one before they also go extinct. They are excellent guitars!...far, far above the norm for their price range, and able to compete with any....and I do mean ANY high end guitar in the world, onstage or off. ...HELLO!....Gibson, can you hear me!...HELLO!...EPIPHONE?...ANYBODY! HELLO! CAN YOU HEAR ME?......HELLO GIBSON!...HELLO EPIPHONE?....CAN YOU HEAR ME?????? !!!

 

I don't know about them but I hear ya. I was waiting and hoping that they would re-add the AJ 500 to the current model line. I got tired of waiting, and was fortunate to find a previously used one in like new condition. It just arived the other day and wow! Although I'm not a fan of satin guitars, the sound more than makes up for the finish. I wasn't going to buy a red label, I was going to wait for the right deal and finally it came along.

[GuitarLight]

Dennis, glad you like your new AJ-500R....and just wait till you play it for a few days or weeks and it opens up!..just unbelievable, as for the satin, I have actually come to love it..it never gets dirty or smudged, it jumps right into my lap, I lean on it, touch it, caress it, and it NEVER looks dirty, and ALWAYS sounds good! Good luck with it! It's an amazing guitar! If you ever get the chance to play it next to a Martin or Gibson Rosewood, just watch your Masterbilt blow them out of them water!...or at the very least fully compete with them! I've always said, the only people who think a $500 to $600 Masterbilt AJ-500 does not sound as good as their $2000 or $3000 guitar, are the ones who paid $3000 for their guitars instead of $500 or $600!!

I don't know about them but I hear ya. I was waiting and hoping that they would re-add the AJ 500 to the current model line. I got tired of waiting, and was fortunate to find a previously used one in like new condition. It just arived the other day and wow! Although I'm not a fan of satin guitars, the sound more than makes up for the finish. I wasn't going to buy a red label, I was going to wait for the right deal and finally it came along.

[CBA713]

I just joined the Masterbilt AJ crew earlier today with the purchase of an AJ-500R NS. Really looking forward to it. After all the talk here and a few other places, I searched pretty intensely for about a week to find a good, non-refurb AJ. I would have preferred the 500M, but the rosewood aspect intrigues me, so I went for it. Still has to be shipped to me, but I'm excited and curious to see how it sounds.

 

And yeah, I agree with actually playing a guitar before you buy it, but I'm mostly wanting a Gibson J-45, and figure the AJ-500R will be perfect for me until I find the EXACT J-45 that I want.

 

 

C

[GuitarLight]

Welcome CBA713....to the Masterbilt club! They are remarkable!

I just joined the Masterbilt AJ crew earlier today with the purchase of an AJ-500R NS. Really looking forward to it. After all the talk here and a few other places, I searched pretty intensely for about a week to find a good, non-refurb AJ. I would have preferred the 500M, but the rosewood aspect intrigues me, so I went for it. Still has to be shipped to me, but I'm excited and curious to see how it sounds.

 

And yeah, I agree with actually playing a guitar before you buy it, but I'm mostly wanting a Gibson J-45, and figure the AJ-500R will be perfect for me until I find the EXACT J-45 that I want.

 

 

C

[milod]

I'm not sure I'd suggest my MB is as good as a Gibson, but it's a very, very fine-playing instrument that "works."

 

I'm not sure why it seems they make guitars in batches that may or may not be repeated, especially the better Epi acoustics and AE guitars.

 

I'd love personally to have a Masterbilt quality PR5e. Gibbie made one virtually identical in the early '50s with a mag pup, but... The size and feel, virtually the same as an ES175, just works well for me and the electronics let it sound quite nice. But... a solid wood version would be nicer.

 

m

[DonCarlos]

I'm not sure I'd suggest my MB is as good as a Gibson,

 

Well, in all due respect, I would say so. in some cases

 

***I edited this because it was just too much babbling to simply say the above.

[milod]

Well, I've my fair share of Epis. And I still don't think that guitar-for-guitar over time that my AJ500me is as good an instrument as an equivalent J45.

 

My reasoning is along the lines that you hadda fix a crack in the back of yours.

 

Now we both know there might be a dozen reasons for that crack, but we also know that we're less certain of the provenance and aging of woods in a factory in China, Indonesia or Korea or wherever an Epi might have been made, than one made in my next door state of Montana.

 

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't swap my AJ for any Taylor. Period. Nor even a Martin. And given a number of neck variants on Gibsons vs. a standard neck on the AJ, I'd also wanna play a given J45 because I'm a neck shape nut. One thing that's kept me from a Gibbie, too, is that I happen to like the Shadow 2 and its minimag as well as under saddle pup, regardless that some folks have been hypercritical of it.

 

If you're comparing quality up against price, yeah, I'm similarly convinced that for a workman's guitar, the Masterbilts are at least among the best values in acoustic and AE guitars going. Ditto, I'll add, for such as my Dots (2) and my from everything I've heard from my "baby brother," his Epi LP. (I don't care for any LP, so gotta go on his perspective.)

 

And I'm no snob. I used to get a kick out of how my boss back in the '80s and I bought nearly identical cars, his a Caddie and me an Pontif-iac. Mine ran and lasted far, far better over the four years he tried to keep his.

 

But I think the Epi vs. Gibbie conversation isn't about fat headed Gibson owners nor Epi wanna-be Gibson owners who dis the Gibbie so they'll feel better about not having the cash to buy batches of Gibbie pegheads.

 

An acquaintance has an old Gibbie 335 type that has been through the wars. It's been rewired, battered and beaten and its finish probably is half old saloon tobacco smoke - and it still plays like a champ for a long, longtime pro. Me, I'd likely have kept it a lot prettier, but...

 

I think Gibson made a good choice in putting Epi badges on its mass production import guitars, unlike Martin that keeps the Martin nameplate on its fiberboard instruments. But that's just a marketing opinion. I've heard the cheapie Martins are good working instruments even as the Epis to me are good working instruments.

 

But for a specific guitar for a specific picker... I think the Gibson is likely to be a better pro instrument. Not any Gibson, but the one with an individual neck handmade and that somehow "fits" the individual. Even HenryJ sez that in a given line of Gibsons, there's enough individual difference on each neck that a player should try several.

 

Me? I keep playing Epis 'stedda Gibsons because I can't take a week off to go somewhere that I might find a batch of Gibsons that I could play to see how they fit, and I'm darned if I'll buy a Gibbie off the Internet. The Epis are marvelous for the cash, too, so I keep playing them and a couple of Chinese-made full hollows by Gretsch and Eastman.

 

In fact, regardless of my Masterbilt and another I've considered buying... my actual favorite play-out AE guitar is one I've taken static for using since it's an Epi "cheapie." But I reeeeally enjoy playing my PR5e and done AE, it sounds as nice as anything comparable regardless of price tag. Gibbie doesn't even currently have an equivalent I'd buy regardless of price. So...

 

m

[meanstreak]

Call me a cynic but I think Gibson shut down most of the Masterbilt line because it was sucking sales of similar Gibson guitars away. I've been considering buying a J-45 for over a year but every time I play one it never seems to sound $1500 better than my AJ-500M or R. I think the next time I go to guitar center I'll bring my Epi with me to really test it out. I actually have the money and have always wanted a J-45 but I can't seem to find one that's truly better!

[milod]

Mean...

 

Yeah, in a sense I think you're being cynical.

 

But with a degree of truth there too.

 

It seems to me that Gibson has a great low-end line in the Epis that are very high value at quite low prices. And then $1,500 up the hill, some marvelous solid wood guitars handmade in America.

 

I'll wager the Masterbuilt runs didn't turn as quickly as hoped because they're in a Neverland of pricing with the fiberboard Martins and a batch of Taylors and others. Yeah, I'll easily agree that value is there, greater than virtually anything with their price tags and a bunch upward. But if they didn't break into the market as expected, they weren't bringing the profits necessary to encourage another run.

 

Also, for the guy willing to enter the $700-1,200 market, there's only basically one scale choice and not the pressure in music stores (brick or on line) to push them over another name. So basically you've an auditorium, slope and square shoulder dread collection of marvelous guitars that never quite caught the eye of the price market niche. Why an Epi when "Gee, for the same money you can get a real Martin!" even though the Martin is a fiberboard import.

 

Parenthetically, I'll wager that with a Gibson name on them and a $200-500 hike in price, they'd have sold like hotcakes. <grin> And you say you're cynical? I'll just point to the fiberboard Martins that do just that sorta sales 'cuz they've a square peghead with a "M" decal. A "Gibson" branded all-wood guitar for $900-1,400 street?

 

That's just a guess, but I'll wager it ain't too far from the truth. And I note that the Epi ES175 copy wasn't a fast seller, either, although I never read anything suggesting it was much less than 90 percent of the Gibson at 15 percent or so of the price tag.

 

m

[meanstreak]

 

Parenthetically, I'll wager that with a Gibson name on them and a $200-500 hike in price, they'd have sold like hotcakes. <grin> And you say you're cynical? I'll just point to the fiberboard Martins that do just that sorta sales 'cuz they've a square peghead with a "M" decal. A "Gibson" branded all-wood guitar for $900-1,400 street?

 

 

Ya on that I think you are dead on, and we're getting that in the new J-35. Heck I'd probably pay $900 for my AJ-500's if they said Gibson across the headstock!

[milod]

Yup on the J35 that just may be my next box.

 

Believe it or not, though, it's mostly 'cuz I want the shorter scale. @#$%@#$%#$%#@$% Hmmmm. That's paying how much to cut 3/4 of an inch off the neck? Sheesh, but guitar pickers can be odd.

 

Thing is, I'll wager there'd be a bigger market for a $899-1,399 street price Gibson label on a Masterbilt than an Epi label a buncha bucks less...

 

Cynical folks, ain't we?

 

<grin>

 

m

[zombywoof]

First, Gibson Guitar Corp is gone. The company is now Gibson Brands which I am guessing is a nod to their ever increasing involvement with the electronics biz. Gives you an idea of which direction they are heading in.

 

Problem is who knows what makes the CEOs and marketing guys tick. What is easy to see though is that there is a ton of competition in the Masterbilt price range. They would have to go toe to toe with guitars like Recording King, Blueridge (which seems to have a lock on the less well heeled Martin crowd) and Eastman which I have heard nothing but raves about and are judged to be an outstanding value.

 

I think Epiphone also may be hampered by the fact that over the decades the name has represented everything from high dollar guitars that gave Gibson a real run for its money, to guitars built side by side with Gibsons and given a real boost when Sir Paulie showed up with one, to an econo-brand. Will the real Epiphone please stand up.