Epiphone SG Special

Obviously the guitar was cheaply produced, with a few layers of Alder and capped with a maple veneer. I would recommend a pickup upgrade to some original Gibsons or maybe some Dimarzip's, then you will have a pretty solid guitar.

I give it a 10 only because I dropped a set of 500T 496R inside. Before that, the sound rating I allow is a 5 - vanilla Epiphone garbage with no character.

Action is somewhat high, but that's okay. This guitar plays well for such a simple machine. The SG, whether you pay 100 or 1000, is a block of wood with 2 pickups, very simple. This lower cost model does nothing to take away from that simple yet deadly effective intent.

I'm not sure I would trust this guitar in a live setting. However, is the perfect guitar to bang around and rehearse with. This is definitely an instrument where you will not cringe if it gets bumped, or cry if it gets stolen. At the same time, it is a very effective axe and, again, now that I installed the 500T/496R combo, keeps up with those 500 dollar guitars out there. A warning, the neck joint is weak.

NA

Let me first just say that I am writing this mostly to inform amateur guitarists ( as they will probably be the ones buying this). I was a brand new player when i bought this guitar and put about 40+ hours reading reviews, trying guitars, and asking friends about what guitar to buy. I eventually decided to buy this Epiphone SG Special. I hope this helps you beginners (as well as veterans) interested in this guitar.

Paid: $235 (bought as part of a starter kit, came with 10 watt amp, softshell case, cord, picks, strap, chromatic tuner, truss rod wrench and instructional DVD)


Made in China, no indication of when if was made, but im guessing no earlier than 2004, bought it in January 2006 right after the Christmas season. 22 frets, neck made of maple, 2 open coil humbucker pickups, one tone knob and one volume knob, 3-way pickup selector, chrome hardware. Good set-up right out of the box, Good setup overall. My only complaints here are that there are slight grooves in the fretboard that can catch your fingernails when you are bending strings. It's not really a big deal if you keep your nails short on your fretting hand. It stays in tune quite well, tuners stay relatively stiff. The accessories were great for a beginner. Amp was decent considering it was a 10-watt. All in all great setup for a basically sub-$200 guitar.

The sound is pretty damn good. It doesn't necessarily sound as good as say a 500-900 dollar guitar, but for a beginner to learn on its great. With high gain the distortion effect is great. It defintely caters to the heavily distorted sound, but does just fine clean and even has great resonance acoustically (without being hooked to an amp). Stock strings were ok, but i recently switched them out with a set of $10 elixir strings i bought under the advice of a guitar center employee and it made a hell of a difference. lot brighter sound once the strings are changed. pickups are ok, not spectacular, but again, it was a 200 dollar guitar. great for the price i paid. i compared this sound to about 10 other sub-200 dollar guitars and this sounds the best by far, much better than its fender and yamaha counterparts. I like to play everything and this can handle it all. A better amp and strings can make this a damn good investment if you want it to be. Also, if you wanted to mod this, different pickups might be in order, but i will leave that up to you, as i have no experience in moding guitars.

Action is a little high for my taste, but not too bad, helped develop my finger strength and coordination. at the higher end of the frets (15-22) its a little narrow and hard to get good precision on the notes. but nothing terrible, again, great for the price. finish is solid. Body is laminated alder/maple. Like i said it was set-up great out of the box, nut was well adjusted, so was bridge.

This guitar is durable as all hell. ive hit the headstock several times against the fridge (which is right next to my desk in my dorm) and it doesnt even have a scratch. had it for 3 months and hit it a couple times on a couple different things. And so has my roommate (who is a bass player and also an acoustic guitar player). My roomates acoustic is all messed up from him hitting it on his bed/desk etc. But everytime he hits my guitar on something it does nothing to it. Not a scratch on it at all in the 3 hard months i've played it. Extremely reliable.

never dealt with them

All in all, this is the best guitar I have found in all of the 200 dollar guitars i have tested. It sounds great, is set up just fine. Suits beginners great, especially if you buy it with all of the other stuff in the player pack. Damn good deal. i've only been playing 3 months but i've done a lot of research and have extensive experience in piano and violin. My roommate, a bass player of 8 years said its damn good considering i paid only 200. I'll likely continue to use this guitar for another year or so until i feel like buying a higher end model. When i went to go pick the guitar up i asked the salesperson what he recommeded, and he said he recommeded this guitar over the epiphone Special II and the other guitars in this price range because it was a more faithful, albeit cheaper, replica of the famous Gibson SG, which is a superb guitar. if it was stolen i might get a stratocaster, Gibson SG or 450-700 dollar guitar just because im decently good now and would like to experiment with better hardware. But for beginners and veterans alike, for the price i paid it was the best i've encountered. Could probably be even better with 150-200 bucks of mods. Great guitar.

Made in Indonesia, cherry red finish nice wood grain. Bolt on next, maple fingerboard with 2 zebra humbucker pickups. 1 volume, 1 tone, with 2 way selector switch. Tune-o-matic bridge, plastic nut, and decent tuners. Bought this in the "poor boy pack" came with an epiphone 10w amp, strap, picks, electronic tuner, padded gig bag and instructional DVD. Giving it a 9 for features as this was the pack, which gave me everything I needed to get started right away for 200 bucks.

Plugged it into a VOX Valvetronix amp when trying it out, sounded fantastic. Rich full sound, not bright, but decent tone. Got lucky, intonation was perfectly adjusted right out of the box. Great starter rock guitar, but I've gotten some great blues tones out of it as well. The clean setting on the amp showed the pickup's weakness, a little muddy. It's a 150 dollar guitar though, I'm extremely happy with it.

Guitar was set up perfectly as noted regarding action, intonation was almost dead on right out of the box. Slight fret buzz at the second fret A string, however that was fixed with a slight truss rod adjustment. Plays like butter compared to some other guitars in this price range. Finish is gorgeous, pictures don't do it justice. The cherry is translucent, and the wood grain stands out more in person than the pics.

Only had it about a week and half, seems to be built somewhat sturdy. I wound't gig with it, doesn't seem built strong enough for road wear. Finish seems like it would last, stock strings are garbage, change them out.

N/A

Made in Korea or Indonesia, laminated, plywood with mahogony top piece. Not sure of year made, one volum and one tone control, three way switch, two humbucking pickups. Bolt on neck. After market Grover tuners.

Very musical. Unplugged, nice ringing sound, plugged in the guitar sounds very good. Looks like standard humbuckers, but unsure, pickups sound excellent, will not need to replace them. Very good clean sound, pickups sound like they could be alnico. Works well with distortion. Not too bright, not too bassy with very good midrange. Definately not a Les Paul, not an Gibson SG either, but it does have it's own unique sound which is very cool.

Action was set up very well, I just had to adjust the pick up height. Very nice finish on the guitar, more of the classic cherry finish that Gibson uses.

Guitar feels very solid, would probably use it on a gig without a backup.

Had to deal with Epiphone 10 years ago and they responded quickly and adequately.

I've been playing 15 years and have found this guitar to be better than I expected. The special series by Epiphone seems to be hit or miss, the hit ones are excellent and the miss ones can be very disappointing.

This review is for the Epiphone SG Special, made '03 in China, I think. This one is a Limited Edition model with wine red finish, zebra pickups, and gold-plated hardware, 22-fret rosewood fingerboard with dot markers. Two white/black humbucking pickups with 1 tone/1 volume and 3-way selector toggle. The Special seems to have a shorter scale than a standard SG (this is the only SG I've ever played) as the fretboard extends farther onto the body. Has a polyurethane gloss finish and Tune-o-matic bridge/stopbar tailpiece. The tuners are the same junk that was on my Epi Les Paul Special I bought in 2000-wouldn't hold tune on a bet. Has a slim neck with medium-jumbo frets. No accessories whatsoever.

If you're looking for an axe to play lightnin'-fast leads on, this one will do the trick...as long as you don't expect Gibson-like sound. The pickups just aren't the greatest, but for jamming/practicing or just plain fun, it should be OK. I've only tried it on a couple of low-wattage amps, a 20 watt Rogue and a Behringer GX110. But I can get much better sounds with my Carvin pickup-equipped L.P. Special on these amps. There are no extraneous noises at all from the electronics or pickups. I like to fingerpick so I gave this one to my son (he's more of a rocker!)'cause it's too hard to play fingerstyle.

The set-up on this SG was about what you'd expect for an axe that cost under $200. You basically have to mess with these cheaper guitars until you get them where they need to be. This is easily accomplished with the Tune-o-Matic bridge, however, so you or your music shop can have it spot-on without too much trouble. The finish on the SG Special is very nice with no noticeable blemishes or flaws. The biggest issue with this guitar for me was, that if you're playing and exert any forward pressure on the guitar body at all with your belly it sounds like you're using a whammy bar-which it doesn't have! And often as not you have to re-tune when this happens. Just too flimsy, I guess...as long as you don't get too wild with it, it's OK. Fretwork is remarkably good for a low-buck electric like this.

As stated above, the SG Special is too weak in the neck-to-body joint for much hard gigging, unless you play it (calmly) sitting down. All the hardware, except the tuners, seems solid enough...I bought and installed some gold diecast tuners on this SG and helped it immensely. Strap buttons aren't Straplocks, but they're not bad.
With proper care (and carefulness!) it should last many years.

Only called Epiphone/Gibson C.S. one time and wasn't too thrilled with them...you'd be better off taking it back to the music store where you bought it.

I'm 51 and have been playing since I was a kid. I own 6 guitars, a bass, 5-string banjo and a mandolin and 4 amps. I pretty much knew what to expect when I ordered this unit...pretty to look at but nothing "Special" as a player's axe. My son likes it, however, and his friends think it's "cool", so I'll leave it at that.
My favorite feature (other than price)is the wine red finish & gold hardware, really looks good. For what it cost, I can't gripe too much.

Well, this guitar is pretty gun. I bought it in 2003. It has an exceptonally good sound when the rhythm humbucker is selected. It has thaat great Blues sound. It is that classic cherry colour and looks great.

Very good sound for blues and rock. If you looking for a clean guitar buy a f#$kin stratocaster.

When i bought it there was a centermetre gap between the edge of the fretboard and the string.

This guitar is very dependable i have gigged wth it about 5 times. It is just stupid not having a backup guitar.

I waited 2 months to get it back from epiphone when i sent it off

Bought it 2005 - made in Indonesia.
Poor-pack SG, glossy red colour, 2xHB, TOM bridge, 1 volume pot, 1 tone pot, 3 way switch, no pickguard.

Resonates well unpluged. Pickups are little week, but decent sounding.
Not exeptionally clean tone, but well suited for Blues , Rock and Metal. Acceptable sustain. Tone controll pot serves only for ornamental purpose. Pickups are dead quiet. Not bad axe for the price.

Finish is exellent. Smooth, glassy clear coat. Nice, slender neck - Epiphone's trademark. Lighing action. Tuners are crap! One of them rattle, one is hard to turn. Bridge nuts slightly missaligned which makes it harder to lower. I'm giving it 7 because tuners and bridge, otherwise would be 10.

Looks solid. Neck joint is strong. Hardware nicely chromed. Finish seems scrach resistant. Tuners need to be changed.

N/A

Exellent axe, but tuners let it down. Good value for money.

This will supplement my review from a couple of weeks ago...

I have now used my new Epi SG at four consecutive gigs, and I was basically happy with its sound and general performance, and still love the feel of its neck-- really lets you "dig in" on solos-- but I was a little disenchanted with the fact that the G string tended to go noticeably sharp when fretted, despite the fact that I had fully adjusted its saddle on the tune-o-matic bridge to maximize the length of the string. As a result, I had to tune the G string just a little bit flat in its open position, which in turn resulted in a miserable-sounding traditional first-position "C" chord !! So... (read on...)

... just yesterday I noticed that the individual adjustable saddles on the 4th, 5th & 6th strings were actually placed within the tune-o-matic bridge kinda backwards, if you will, so that, given the contour (shape) of the saddle pieces, it's possible to lengthen the contact point on those strings to a greater degree than if the pieces were situated facing the opposite way. The saddle pieces on the first three strings were situated in the reverse (and visually more conventional) direction, presumably because the manufacturer feels those strings don't need as much "lengthening" adjustment as the 4th, 5th & 6th strings. So, I took all of the strings off, removed the individual saddle piece for the G string, turned it around the opposite direction, put it back in, adjusted it so as to maximize the length of the G string, put on a fresh set of strings, tuned the guitar up to pitch, and... WOW !! The G string is now PERFECTLY intonated, it has a perfectly precise octave from the open position to the 12th fret, I no longer have to tune it flat in the open position, and the guitar now plays dead-on accurately all the way up and down the fretboard!

Everything still holding up quite well. I just love the way this axe looks, with its SG shape, and its cherry red finish. It's so inexpensive, yet so decent !! It's a guitar you want to take really good care of.

No contacts with customer support yet.

I started playing when I was 13. I'm 52 now. I've played continuously during those years. This guitar is an absolute STEAL !! I've always used a Strat, but I just love my little Epiphone SG Special !! It's so comfortable to play, and has a nice edgy attitude to it ! It's well-made. No frills, but beautiful in its simplicity.

the features on this guitar are great, there are non locking tuners, the gig bag doesnt give alot of padding and the strap leaves the guitar to slant downward once you let go,and the cable it comes with pops out of the amp easily,it was a 2005, made in china..very good guitar

the sound is great it has a rich full powerfull sound, but can also have a jazzy or pop rock sound also, unplugged is great because it sound just like an accoustic, i am using it with a epiphone studio 10 amp(came with guitar in player pack) and it a=is a great amp, lots of different distortions

guitar has a nice clean shiny black body, i have found this guitar very well fit, pickups were very well adjusted

very durible, i have dropped this guitar many times and hasnt caused a scratch

great guitar i would reccomend it to anyone with a taste for a powerful SG and doesnt want to pay too much for it

Bought new from Musician's Friend. Features have been amply covered in prior reviews. This is a base-model electric guitar. No frills, but I will say that for the relatively small cost involved, this is a very nice instrument. The cherry red finish is very nice, and it looks great. Out of the box, it was set up quite well. I immediately installed a fresh set of strings and tweaked the intonation a little bit, and this little axe feels and plays quite well!!

It sounds really good. I'm using it thru my little Vox Pathfinder 15-R, hooked into an old 1 X 12 speaker cabinet, and it sounds terrific! I also have a Dunlop Crybaby Wah, and a Digitech RP-50 effects box, hooked up. The overall combination has worked out very well for purposes of the club-type gigs I've played with it.

See above.

With the TLC that I give all of my gear, this guitar will hold up just fine.

No problems so far. N/A

I've been playing for 39 years. I bought a Fender Stratocaster in 1973, and it had been my only electric for all those subsequent years, but I had always loved the look and feel of the SG style guitar. So I got this for myself for Christmas, and thus far I am totally delighted with it. For the money, it is very impressive. I particularly like the access to the higher register that it provides with its cutaways, and the fretboard has a nice feel to
it-- it feels like I can "dig in" on lead parts with more confidence than I did with the Strat, and that helps my confidence, which in turn fuels my imaginativeness. Overall, a very good value!