ES 175 problems

[daveinspain]

From my posts in the lounge many of you may know that I had been after an ES 175 for years and this past June on a trip home to Boston I finally picked one up. I was pretty stoked because I got a great deal on a new 59 historic model (new old stock because it was actually a 2014 model). It was a guitar that sat in Guitar Center for a couple years that I got at clearance price. The strings on it were a couple years old and it sounded a bit dead but I attributed that to the old strings. When I got the guitar home I put some flat wounds on it and played it like that for a while but it was still sounding dull and was rather stiff to play. I attributed that to the flat wounds. Last week I decided to put some regular 10s on it hoping to get the sound and feel I was looking for. After installing the new strings it sounded even duller and dead in some spots. So then I started looking at the set up. While inspecting the neck relief I notice the neck slopes downward at the 15th of 16th fret… Adjusting the truss rod seems to only affect the 2nd or 3rd fret to the 12th or 13th fret. I'm worried that the neck curving downward after the 15th fret may be a defect in manufacturing. Can anyone tell me if this is a normal thing on an ES 175. If not what can I do? Maybe the guitar sat in Guitar Center for so long because it had this problem? I have tried just about every combination of neck relief and bridge hight but can't get it to play and sound like an ES 175 should and I have played many of them over the years while I was looking for one. Please help, I'm staring to feel a bit let down...

[capmaster]

I'm sorry for the trouble you have with your ES-175.

 

Do I get it right that at a neck relief basically fine from 1st to 12th fret a bulge at 13th and 14th fret will result that chokes string vibration?

 

EDIT some minutes later: I just noticed you also posted this to the Gibson Lounge and found there's some good advice already.