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This is my first semi-hollow guitar after 30+ years of Les Pauls, SG's and Strats. Man, am I ever surprised. I wanted to try an affordable ES guitar before I spent major bucks on another Gibson. The playability, the tones, the looks and the quality are all top notch here. I bought the Olive Drab model, which looks killer, and although it excels in all styles of music, it seems most at home churning out big, dirty rock chords. I've played it thru my Katana and my Marshall JCM and it just sounds fantastic. These Alnico Classic Pro pickups, Clean or with some generous gain, just sound FANTASTIC. It's staying in tune great, needed minimal setup work when it arrived, mainly just minor intonation adjustment and fretboard conditioning. This ES-335 has led me to second guess a few of my past expensive Gibson purchases. Every thing I could have wanted from a new, semi-hollow guitar is right here. No need to spend thousands for a different name on the headstock. From the new Epiphone lineup I now own the new IBGC '59 Les Paul (with Custombuckers), the Adam Jones Les Paul Custom and now this ES-335, and these three guitars will easily hold their own against anything that Gibson USA is putting out these days. I plan on putting some serious miles on this guitar.

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Where to start?! First off the most obvious is the finish. I was interested in the OD green, but was curious how it would look in person versus the picture. All I can say is WOW! The binding really pops with the green. Second, I haven’t weighed it yet but this one is on the heavier sides of semi-hollow bodies which I think gives it a better tone. Third, the neck is a rounded C closer to the 50’s style, which fits my large hands perfectly! It did require some minor adjustments for the set up the fretboard was a little dry but that’s usually the case with imports. Epiphone has really stepped up their game in the past few years and I’m all for it! You will NOT be disappointed with this one!

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I love this ES-335! Finish was perfect. Neck feels great. The one I received did not have sharp fret ends. I did do a "setup" on the guitar to my preferred playing specs, but was 100% playable out of the box with no tuning issues. The pickups sound awesome! I loved the sound of this guitar so much I went ahead and got the ES-339 Inspired by Gibson that has the same pickups. It was also 100% playable out of the box. I would definitely recommend this guitar.

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Recently received one of these bad boys, been playing for 22 years, owned copious amounts of guitars of the years and this is easily in the top 3 nicest guitars I've ever owned/played! Thanks once again to zZounds this arrived perfectly and ready to play right out the box, can't put it down!

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Got this guitar on a whim because it was on sale at $100 off, and I figured worst case I could return it. I’d only ever had one other semi-hollow Gretsch and I wasn’t impressed with it, but I love the way these guitars look and feel. Right out of the box it looked and felt great. I definitely had to tune it which was fine, and the intonation was pretty much perfect. Immediately plugged it into my buddy’s AC30 with vox blue speakers in it and turned it up, and it was a match made in heaven. Very fat, warm and full sounding, but has its own bite and crispness as well. Cleans aren’t “jangly” like a solid body fender or something (duh), but they have their own sparkle to them for sure, and I love where they sit, sonically, in context with my own band and writing. It’s been 2+ months since I’ve gotten it and I’ve played a few shows with it and I’ve used it in the studio as well. It works for me and what I need, and it’s made me really love semi-hollows. At least, epiphone/gibson semis. If you’re curious, just get it and see if it works for you! zZounds is great about returning gear and all if you don’t end up loving it. Which I will be surprised about, personally. Just keep your box it came in just in case, as that will help so much.

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I've heard about the increase in quality for Epiphone products for a few years now. This guitar did not disappoint. The first thing that struck me when I took this guitar out of the box is how astonishing the olive drab finish looks in person. This guitar is aesthetically pleasing as any Gibson I have owned. The factory setup out of the box was better than expected. The neck had the proper amount of relief, the fretwork was not bad, and the intonation was fairly close to perfect. All I really had to do was lower the action just a bit. To my ears, there isn't a meaningful difference in tone between this model and the Gibson ES-335 that I own. This guitar has all of the warmth and chime you would expect from a 335. Overall, this guitar is a phenomenal value and absolutely recommended.

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Picked up a blemished model, and honestly it looks like it's brand new. One minor scuff on the corner where my forearms goes when I play, and little discoloration on on the edge of the pickguard layering that's only noticeable when playing and looking down at it. Tuned it up and gave it a quick jam through my MT15 and after playing with the volume and tone knobs found a nice sound. Picked up some TV Jones Power'Trons on their blemished sale after I ordered this to make my poor man's Frankenstein'd Chris Cornell signature. This might be one of the best deals of all time. Only downside, I wish it was the matte finish of the actual CC Gibson.

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Verified Purchaser zZounds has verified that this reviewer purchased this specific product from us.

I never write gear reviews, but I gotta do this for my pals at zZounds. Not only is it an easy company to do business with, particularly if something goes awry with a piece of gear. I bought one of these Epiphones and it arrived with a cracked neck. They dispatched a replacement the same day. When I got the new one, that was in stellar condition, I was excited right out out of the box. I’ve owned and played very expensive guitars but I could never get over the fact that this thing I was playing was worth entirely too much money, which diminished my enjoyment. The guitar I cut my teeth on was an Epiphone Tom Delonge signature. I popped a Dirty Fingers in this guitar and the resonance and power countered all the high-priced guitars I ever played. Out of the box, it was playable. Being a serial tinkerer, now it’s among my favorites. Epiphone is really stepping up their game by outfitting these new ones with good pots and tuners goes a long way. These are great guitars to use as a canvas. A little mod here, a swap here, and you can bang it around with some abandon. A winner all around.

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Loved it from the minute I saw it. The olive green color I see nothing drab about it. Please very well. No regrets whatsoever, love it. I would easily get it at 5 and 1/2 Stars on price if I could and a couple other details about it !

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Out of the box, was unplayable for me due to rough frets( tool marks), nasty buzz all over. Had them leveled, crowned and polished now plays much better. After having it repaired, noticed the paint in the f holes was tacky, to my dismay, the paint just wiped right off. Zzounds refused to take responsibility, they referred me to gibson. Beware of qc issues and awful customer service.

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Been think of buying semi-hollowbody for a while and decided on this one. Great guitar was playable out of the box and sounds great.

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Frets so sharp it tears the skin on your fingers. Doesn’t look like Fret sprout, it looks like bad fretwork.Every knob, switch and Jack was loose and required tightening. Once you get past the numerous finish issues it’s a beautiful guitar. Really hoping for more out of Epiphone. Super disappointed. I would pass on this one.

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I bought this Epiphone model because I've been wanting an es style guitar for awhile now and while I can afford an actual Gibson version I wanted to make sure I bonded with the kind of guitar before shelling out almost $4000 for a guitar that may set in my closet. The guitar was setup really good right out of the box with the exception of a back bow in the neck and ironically Epiphone doesn't send an Allen key for the truss rod so I had to special order one, no big deal but still a strike. The neck is on the chunky side which I like, the fretboard looks just like rosewood but it's actually laurel. The frets were a bit scratchy so I had to polish them, again no big deal but still a strike. The specs are misleading because the binding is actually painted on to look like binding not sure about around the neck but the body is definitely painted. While it does have CTS pots they're the absolute lowest production model CTS makes cause I pulled one out, and the center Maple block looks to be a regular 2X4 and nothing special but this is a $599 guitar. There's not a lot of attention to detail, for instance, a Gibson pickup ring has two different size screws for the front and back of the ring also different sizes for both rings while on this guitar they're all the same size. I understand it's for production and to keep cost down but some people look at stuff like that so I shared it. The Epiphone pickups IMO are absolute trash, finger nails on a chalk board trash so I changed them out to DiMarzio 59 PAFs and so far it's a pleasing sounding guitar. The finish is poly so that takes some getting used to plus it doesn't ring out unplugged like the Gibson model I played a few months ago but what it does sounds good unplugged. Over all I was pleasantly impressed with this guitar and I wasn't expecting much especially since I grew up in the era when Epiphone was considered kid guitars. If you're really dead set on a Gibson es-335 then this guitar probably won't change you're mind but if you're on the fence as I am at the moment it's a really good hold over until you can make up your mind or save the funds. It plays really good, looks great, and does what an es-335 guitar should do, be expecting to do a pickup swap though. IMO it's really hard to get five out of five stars on anything and I'm not one to just throw them out on a review just to do it, this is definitely four out five, truss rod Allen key would have been made it five, just saying. Oh I bought this guitar from AMS not zZounds but they're one in the same.

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