Product: EKO 500 V4
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
08/01/2008
at
11:31am
by
Ed Seagraves
Email: seagraves<at>libero dot it
Features
:
8
Mid-60s Italian solid-body with fake wood plastic stuff on front, dark red swirly plastic stuff on back, including back of neck and headstock. Raised gold binding around body. Jaguar-Jazzmaster shape. Four single-coil pickups. Six sliding pick-up switches including cut-off. One volume and one tone knob. Tremolo. Tortoise pickguard and matching plate under tremolo. Six-in-line open back tunes with plastic knobs. Bridge is new Tune-O-Matic. Propeller fretboard markers. Eko logo missing from pickguard.
Sound
:
4
I tried it out through a vintage silver-face Twin that hadn't been turned on in years, and I thought it sounded fabulous for surf music. Once I got it home and had the time to play it through a POD, I realized that the sounds are really not to my liking. Question of taste. Sounds too nasal for me. With selector on the brigde pick-up, it's so trebly as to be unusable. The pick-ups also seem to pick up the sound of the switches being moved. Variety of sounds is interesting. If only those sounds weren't so nasal. Would be curious to know how it would sound with, like, Jaguar pick-ups. I'd do that if it didn't require routing since I want to keep it as original as possible for later resale.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
8
It needed a fret job, so I had that done right off. The neck and action are absolutely fabulous. Best neck I've ever played, though this also is a question of taste. I suppose the Tune-O-Matic bridge is an improvement over the original.
Reliability/Durability
:
7
Since I'm not that happy with the sounds I probably wont be gigging it. Plus, I'm a lefty so I'd have to play it upside down, which is not a major problem, but I think it looks doofy. To be fair, I think I'll use it at rehearsal and listen to what it sounds like in a band setting. Anyway, it seems solid enough. I treat my guitars like babies and I have a fairly light strumming hand so I can't imagine it would suffer from normal use.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Not applicable. Any work will be done by a local tech.
Overall Rating
:
No Opinion
I got this guitar for nothing. Favorite feature is the neck. Worst features are the sounds.
I've been playing guitar since '63, gigging since '72. Over the years I've played Strats, Teles, 335s, Dan Armstrong, modded Jazzmaster. I currently own a Jap 60s Strat, Jap Tele Custom, Gretsch Duo Jet, Eastwood Supro Coronado, Crestline LP copy, Samick ES-5 copy. I have a vintage Davoli amp (Italian) and a tweed Peavey Classic 30. Always go through a POD.
