Is Epiphone ....Les Pauls

[Bangbang]

Fenders Squier?

[RotcanX]

MMM.. sorta. The histories are different; Epiphone started life as a musical instrument company, and has a rich guitarmaking tradition that unfortunately has very little in common with the stuff they produce today, and was absorbed into Gibson in the late fifties... on the other hand, Squier was originally a string company that Fender bought, with no original guitar designs of their own. Since Fender-style guitars are basically very simple instruments, the Squier clones tend to be a lot closer in overall performance to their Fender patterns than is the case with Epiphone/Gibson. For example if you shop around you can get a Squier Strat with an alder body and decent alnico pickups that is shockingly close to an American Fender, and in many ways superior to the so called "MIM" Fenders. I suppose you could equate the Elitist Epiphones with Fender's Standard series line which is made under the Fender brand in Mexico, alongside various other Fender models of decent quality. Fender is a lot more comfortable with applying their brand to various foreign-made instruments than Gibson is; personally it is my opinion that this constipation on Gibson's part is the main reason for the disappointing lackluster sales of the Elitist line.

[Bangbang]

Thanks for the response.

[matiac]

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