Epiphone SST Studio 2008

New 2008 SST Studio. Made in Indonesia. Several key improvements when compared to the older Chet Atkins SST Studio (I'll explain those in the last category).
14 frets to the body, plus fretboard extension on treble side of neck. Frets are small and low like most acoustics.
Spruce top on chambered Mahogany body with cutaway. Ebony solid finish.
Mahogany neck, neck profile is deeper than a Les Paul, similar to most acoustic necks.
Shadow NanoFlex under-saddle piezo pickup with active Shadow preamp with Volume, Treble, & Bass sliders, Headphone/Amp Selector switch, and battery case.
Dark Rosewood inverted acoustic bridge.
Gold Grover tuners.
24.75 scale.
This guitar is slightly heavier than most Gibson-style solidbody electrics.

Plugged in, it is very bright sounding with a lot of presence. The bass can be boomy without much bass note definition if the Bass slider is turned up in the preamp. It's not exactly a full sound as the body of the guitar isn't deep like a true acoustic, but it is much fuller than the older SST's with the passive electronics. It has a really good percussive sound, it's not very lush sounding like a good true full-bodied acoustic. It does have a very slight reverb sound on the sustain of notes which surprised me since I wasn't expecting that since it is a chambered body. I guess the "computer-cut tone chambers" help the sound a bit.

Unplugged, it is about as loud as thin semi-hollow guitars like the Epiphone Dot.

It certainly sounds much better with a more acoustic-like sound plugged-in than a chambered custom Stratocaster I had with the Fishman Power Bridge or my Brian Moore i8.13 with the RMC Piezo Bridge.
It's not noisy at all, pretty much silent when not playing, which is most likely due to the active preamp.

The action was high but this was fixed (read below).
The high E string was barely audible when the guitar was plugged in since the NanoFlex piezo pickup was not sitting fully under the bridge saddle.
I removed the strings, and moved the piezo over so it sat all the way across the saddle slot.
I also noticed 2 thick plastic strips under the piezo pickup which I removed which lowered the action significantly and actually improved the bass sound quite a bit.

Other than that glaring pickup placement issue, the rest of the guitar is surprisingly well-built. The frets are nicely done and will only require a polish. The neck is very straight with no warping or uneven frets. The saddle slot in the bridge looked perfectly flat as well.
The off-white binding on the body is flawless.
The nut was cut pretty well too, no need to replace that. The Grover tuners are nice.

Seems very solid.
I see or feel no problems with the hardware.

Never dealt with Epiphone/Gibson.

I've been playing for around 19 years, since 9th grade in high school. I used to own one of the first versions of the Epiphone Chet ATkins SST with the fake soundhole and passive electronics with Volume and Tone knobs. It was very neck heavy, this new SST is perfectly balanced while in a seated position which makes it great for recording while seated in front of a computer. The fit-and-finish of the newer imported guitars are a lot better these days. I remember when $300 would buy a cheaply built and poor sounding and poor playing guitar - not anymore.

This new SST sounds much better than the old SST, the Shadow NanoFlex piezo pickup along with the new Shadow preamp with separate Bass and Treble controls sound much fuller than the old SST. It doesn't sound as good as a regular acoustic guitar with a decent piezo and active preamp, but I'll take the tradeoff since it very thin and doesn't hurt my right shoulder when I play it.
One of the best things is the preamp. Having a switch for selecting either headphone or amp output is a great idea.

I really like this guitar, and see myself playing it more than my other guitars which at the moment are a Hamer Sunburst XT, Brian Moore i8.13, Fender Highway One Stratocaster, Ibanez AXD-82P, Ibanez AC-10NT OO-sized acoustic, and an old Sigma DR2.