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Old Epiphone Zakk Wylde Custom vs New Zakk Wylde Custom


Rob.A

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Hi, I'm Rob and I'm new to this forum. Last week I bought an '08 Epiphone ZW Les Paul second-hand for £350. For a second hand guitar, it's in practically new condition, with only a few scratches on the amp cable jack and that's it. Being a Les Paul guy, I'd also heard of the 2011 Epi ZW Les Paul Custom Plus, complete with EMG Actives and an ebony fretboard rather than rosewood. Unfortunately, the cheapest it retails for over here is about £515, and the main reason why I bought a second-hand one is because it was really good value. My question is; is the new Zakk Wylde Custom Plus worth the extra £165 or would it be better value overall to just stick some ZW Actives in my current Les Paul and be done with it?

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Yeah I hea4d about the recent changes about the zakk wylde sig. And I don't uuse EMG's but my friend is in love with them and said the passive pickups are not as good as the active pickups when it comes down to playing heavy metal. The fact that it vomes with ebony fretboard to me is a Giant plus. So I would assume that its worth the extra one hundred something pounds if you like that kinda stuff. Now if only epiphone will put ebony on the other custom models ^_^ . Also let's say you were to modify your current zw sig like this new one it would cost more than a hundred pounds.

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Yeah I hea4d about the recent changes about the zakk wylde sig. And I don't uuse EMG's but my friend is in love with them and said the passive pickups are not as good as the active pickups when it comes down to playing heavy metal. The fact that it vomes with ebony fretboard to me is a Giant plus. So I would assume that its worth the extra one hundred something pounds if you like that kinda stuff. Now if only epiphone will put ebony on the other custom models ^_^ . Also let's say you were to modify your current zw sig like this new one it would cost more than a hundred pounds.

 

Yeah, I really like the idea of having actives instead of passives but I ask myself whether it's a £150+ change that's currently worth making, or whether it's worth contemplating at a later date, mainly because I find the passives you do get in the ZW to be quite good (of course, that's subjective), and it wouldn't cost anymore to retrofit them to the one I have now. I'm curious about the ebony fretboard though, because I've never played ebony, does it have any practical advantages over rosewood?

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Welcome to the forum Rob.

I have active EMGs on my guitars as you can see in my sig and I can tell you that you have a fine guitar.

Put it this way, if you want to play metal, the passive EMGs that you have will do fine.

It's more about the amp than the pickups.

But is the ZW LP Plus worth the extra money?

That's really up to you.

If you were to upgrade the pickups, at Thomann they cost £123.

In addition, the guitar does come with an ebony fretboard.

That would be more expensive.

Personally, I wouldn't care.

You have a fine guitar and the proof of that is that Zakk Wilde played with one like yours and sounds just like he does anyway.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYMupc564zE

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  • 1 year later...

I first bought an Epi ZW back around '02 or something like that. The neck by the nut felt kinda thin and came with HZs. The feel of the construction was acceptable, but after I traded out the HZs with the EMG ZW kit, it had the most crushing tone of any guitar I've ever owned. I checked a new one out yesterday. The neck feels much, much bigger and comes with active EMGs. And it still crushes! And the same price range as well.

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