Roosto7 Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 If the Broadway is closest to a L-5, what would be close to a ES 350 T in body size and appointments?
RobinTheHood Posted December 30, 2011 Posted December 30, 2011 Near as I can tell, it would be the Byrdland...which are discontinued.
Roosto7 Posted December 30, 2011 Author Posted December 30, 2011 Near as I can tell, it would be the Byrdland...which are discontinued. Curious.... What is Epiphone thinking when they discontinue these great guitars?
DeweyCox Posted December 31, 2011 Posted December 31, 2011 Curious.... What is Epiphone thinking when they discontinue these great guitars? "They don't sell very well, so we'll discontinue them and build something that will" Maybe? I'm just guessing…
RobinTheHood Posted December 31, 2011 Posted December 31, 2011 The Byrdland in particular is kind of an odd guitar to begin with. Having a scale of 23.5", its almost a 3/4 scale jazzbox, which is something that probably isnt in high demand. I would imagine that it didnt get high enough sales numbers to be worth continuing production. At the end of the day, that is what it is really about.
Parabar Posted December 31, 2011 Posted December 31, 2011 I've heard some reliable reports that part of the decision to discontinue the Elitist line was that they were TOO good and were cutting into sales of the higher-profit Gibson equivalent models. The marketing experts decided it was better to have a clear delineation between Gibson and Epiphone, rather than maintain the Elitist line that was somewhere between the two. My experience would tend to support that --- I have played quite a few Gibson L-5's (list $10k, street price new around $7k to $8k, used around $5k to $6k) --- not one of them played as well as or sounded any better than my Elitist Broadway for WAY less than that.
RobinTheHood Posted December 31, 2011 Posted December 31, 2011 Parabar, I've heard the same thing and dont doubt it. Aside from that, and talking about the Byrdland specifically, there were no non-Elitist Byrdlands. That tells me that they werent in high enough demand for Epiphone to continue to produce them as a standard model. I think that if there was enough interest in a 23.5" jazz guitar, they would have continued them as a standard model...or at least a test run of of limited edition non-elitist models. But who knows what surprises Epiphone has in store for 2012...
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