ESP Guitars

[Cruciform]

I realise there's a lot of old school USA guitar players here but I'll chuck my 2c in and say I have never picked up or played a better looking, better sounding, better made guitar than my ESP Horizon Custom. Some of that is subjective but in terms of build quality and component quality, I will stand by it.



Mahogany body with quilted maple archtop, neck thru and strings thru with Sperzel locking tuners. Seymour Duncan JB/59 pickup set. I'll be keeping this one for life.

[fret17]

Hi Cruciform..........Nice axe....Would you believe I once owned a 1958 gibson epiphone...exact model George Harrison played in the early beatle days?...It had that early beatle sound and played like a dream...I got it in mint condition along with a fender studio amp pre cbs (probably from the same year) . Turns out they were sitting in a closet from '58 til '76 when I saw the ad. "Played once $250 for both with hard shell case"...What a steal!...well a short time after i jumped on it , it got stolen from me at a gig in New Jersey....gear like that always grow legs...probably worth close to 10 grand today...maybe more...but the best playing guitar I ever owned was a Westone Spectrum modeled from a "58 fender strat....the neck was an exact duplication of the strat, action was super fast and low..but the greatest part about it was the coil taps...I pulled the specs from the net:
(The Westone Spectrum II had a solid alder body with a one piece maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. The nut was graphite. The scale length was 25.5 inches and it had 22 frets.
Pickups were two Westone (Matsumoku) made Hammer I humbuckers and one Super II single coil pickup. Controls were one master volume, two tone controls (with push-pull pots for coiltap and reverse phase) and a five way pickup selector. Hardware was black: a floating (two point knife edge) precision tremolo tailpiece and precise tuner 1 machineheads. Finish options were blue burst or silver stone.)....

You could set dozens of sounds according to how you set the knobs...really clean almost like bells sometimes...had to hock it though...I've got a song featuring it somewhere....down the line I may post it so you can hear what I'm talking about...
If you ever get the chance to play one , I think you might be surprised...and BTW....They're made in Japan...lots of luck with your esp and the next time I'm at the guitar center I'll see if I can check it out...

Fret 17

[Rob Lorenzo]

I imagine that sounds nice too! What are you playing it through?

Liking the fact it's fixed bridge.

I tried out a couple of ESPs last (Vantage? LP copy) - wonderful to play and sounded great - next on my list.

[Cruciform]

@ Tom - that Westone sounds nice. Unfortunate about the punk who stole it!

@ Rob L - when live, I played direct through a PA. At home I play direct through a Boss GT-10 to PC. When I can justify it though, I will eventually get a Blackstar HT-5. I have a Fender Performer 650 (65w), but it's just too loud for my needs.