Window Shopping

[Natty]

Took my Lp tribute plus in for a pro setup today, so did a few tryouts for a semi hollow I hope to purchase before too long, I had thought that a 339 or casino would be my cup of tea but have ended up with a hankering for something much bigger, the Broadway; what a lovely guitar, they also had a very nice emperor swingster. Gold fittings which looked great, but I've read reports of flaking.

 

Any experiences out there?

[burchster]

The gold plating on Epi hardware will fade and discolor but it's not a reason to not but a guitar..I would like to also get a broadway...a beautiful guitar for sure!

[sbpark]

Not sure about flaking, but all gold hardware will wear over time, and it's not just with Epiphones. My brother's '87 SG was a special run and has all gold hardware that's mostly work off over the years. Banjos with gold-plated hardware also wears off. If it's a gold-plated part on a guitar, and you actually play the guitar like it's intended, it will tarnish and wear.

[kidblast]

Took my Lp tribute plus in for a pro setup today, so did a few tryouts for a semi hollow I hope to purchase before too long, I had thought that a 339 or casino would be my cup of tea but have ended up with a hankering for something much bigger, the Broadway; what a lovely guitar, they also had a very nice emperor swingster. Gold fittings which looked great, but I've read reports of flaking.

 

Any experiences out there?

 

So happens I have both the Broadway and a Swingster (White Royale)

 

Very nice guitars.

 

depending on the year of the Broadway, the pickups might be different. Epiphone stepped up the electronics in these a few years ago, so the older ones would generic epiphone humbuckers, the newer ones are US designed alnicos (they are nice). Mine has the later, and I do like them a lot.

 

While it's a big guitar, and I'm not a big guy (5' 7" 159 lbs) it's a comfortable player. It's definitely a "jazz box", and does finger style, modal chord stuff as well as just regular flat picking. The pickups are warm, with a bit of bite with tones set at 10. Rolling off the tone, you can definitely bring out that classic Jazz tone. It comes with round wound strings, (Wound G 11 gauge) You may find flatwounds are preferable - purely a matter of personal preference, flatwounds of course are really going to offer a classic jazz tone on this one.

 

If you're looking for a good jazz box, but don't really want to invest a lot of cash, the Broadway is about the best bang for the buck out there. The Ibanez Artcores seem comparable, but I've no experience with them personally.

 

 

The Swingster is very cool, the pickups are "Swingbuckers" made in China, they are excellent. Good at resisting feed back and are setup in a coil split config with the tone pots pushed in. The coil split definitely offers that rockabilly "Twang" sometimes, I think it sounds more like a telecaster than a hollow body. Pull the tone pots out, and the pickups get nice and thick and PAF-ish. When you set the pickup select in the middle and you can get a lot of tones by selecting a combination of coil split + full humbucker. (nice!)

 

The bridge on Swingster is pinned so it wont move around if you play a bit more heavy handed, and it wont move on you during a full set string change. The bigsby / roller bridge works good, and I've not experienced tuning problems. (I do my own setups and I do make sure the witness points are lubed {eg: Big Bends Nut Sauce})

 

The Swingster also comes with 11s and a wound G. A plain G may suit your playing style better. You can even load it up with 10s if that is more comfortable for you. This guitar can do it all. Jazz, Blues, Rock... it can handle just about what ever you throw at it. If your going to be in high volume situations with a lot of gain setting, you'll have to deal with some feed back.

 

Overall, it's a blast to play. The neck profile does feel to me like a "59 round neck".

 

 

Playability and over all performance on both of these guitars surpasses the expectations of the cost. Fit and Finish on the Broadway I have is impressive, the Swingster had a few very small blems in the finish that are hardly noticeable, but I can see they are there. The Swingster White Royale comes in a pearl white finish with gold binding and gold hardware. Finishes are Black Royal, a Wine Red (very nice) and Orange (Cool!) with chrome hardware. It's an impressive guitar for the money, the White Roayle is eye catching, gets a lot of "Woa! what is that?" comments.

 

Truss rods on both of mine are quite responsive and the setup tolerances allow you to set the action as low as you like I've got the Swingster's action quite low, (3/64s, 2/64s) with no fret cancellation.

 

as you can see, I can't say enough good things about these guitars, for the money, they are impossible to beat.

 

If you have any questions, pm me.

 

/Ray

 

 

 

PS: I've had them both for a few years now, the gold platting has not shown any wear yet and these guitars get a lot of use.

one other thing, the cases do not come with the guitar, so you may want to check on that.

[Natty]

So happens I have both the Broadway and a Swingster (White Royale)

 

Very nice guitars.

 

depending on the year of the Broadway, the pickups might be different. Epiphone stepped up the electronics in these a few years ago, so the older ones would generic epiphone humbuckers, the newer ones are US designed alnicos (they are nice). Mine has the later, and I do like them a lot.

 

While it's a big guitar, and I'm not a big guy (5' 7" 159 lbs) it's a comfortable player. It's definitely a "jazz box", and does finger style, modal chord stuff as well as just regular flat picking. The pickups are warm, with a bit of bite with tones set at 10. Rolling off the tone, you can definitely bring out that classic Jazz tone. It comes with round wound strings, (Wound G 11 gauge) You may find flatwounds are preferable - purely a matter of personal preference, flatwounds of course are really going to offer a classic jazz tone on this one.

 

If you're looking for a good jazz box, but don't really want to invest a lot of cash, the Broadway is about the best bang for the buck out there. The Ibanez Artcores seem comparable, but I've no experience with them personally.

 

 

The Swingster is very cool, the pickups are "Swingbuckers" made in China, they are excellent. Good at resisting feed back and are setup in a coil split config with the tone pots pushed in. The coil split definitely offers that rockabilly "Twang" sometimes, I think it sounds more like a telecaster than a hollow body. Pull the tone pots out, and the pickups get nice and thick and PAF-ish. When you set the pickup select in the middle and you can get a lot of tones by selecting a combination of coil split + full humbucker. (nice!)

 

The bridge on Swingster is pinned so it wont move around if you play a bit more heavy handed, and it wont move on you during a full set string change. The bigsby / roller bridge works good, and I've not experienced tuning problems. (I do my own setups and I do make sure the witness points are lubed {eg: Big Bends Nut Sauce})

 

The Swingster also comes with 11s and a wound G. A plain G may suit your playing style better. You can even load it up with 10s if that is more comfortable for you. This guitar can do it all. Jazz, Blues, Rock... it can handle just about what ever you throw at it. If your going to be in high volume situations with a lot of gain setting, you'll have to deal with some feed back.

 

Overall, it's a blast to play. The neck profile does feel to me like a "59 round neck".

 

 

Playability and over all performance on both of these guitars surpasses the expectations of the cost. Fit and Finish on the Broadway I have is impressive, the Swingster had a few very small blems in the finish that are hardly noticeable, but I can see they are there. The Swingster White Royale comes in a pearl white finish with gold binding and gold hardware. Finishes are Black Royal, a Wine Red (very nice) and Orange (Cool!) with chrome hardware. It's an impressive guitar for the money, the White Roayle is eye catching, gets a lot of "Woa! what is that?" comments.

 

Truss rods on both of mine are quite responsive and the setup tolerances allow you to set the action as low as you like I've got the Swingster's action quite low, (3/64s, 2/64s) with no fret cancellation.

 

as you can see, I can't say enough good things about these guitars, for the money, they are impossible to beat.

 

If you have any questions, pm me.

 

/Ray

 

 

 

PS: I've had them both for a few years now, the gold platting has not shown any wear yet and these guitars get a lot of use.

one other thing, the cases do not come with the guitar, so you may want to check on that.

 

Very comprehensive answer, thank you. I had a good check over both guitars, and the finish was very good, definitely more care applied than the Casino, and 339 I tried. The technicalities are a bit beyond my knowledge at the moment, but hopefully that will improve.

They also had a matte black premium ES175 but the finish is not for me, I'm sure they sound great, but it seems I'm quite shallow!

 

I'd have a Broadway tomorrow but my playing does't justify 2 guitars, or possibly even one guitar! I've only been at it a few months, and not exactly at the peak of learning capability. So the Broadway will remain a reward target, but I can see why some guys have a few or even forty.

[kidblast]

I can see why some guys have a few or even forty.

 

lol!!

 

yea... there's no cure for this, (I've been playing now for about 50 years, presently I'm holding on to 20 guitars of various makes/models, and yet, just like a turkey dinner on Christmas Day, always room for one more! )