Just for a change, I’m writing a review of a guitar instead of a pickup but I’m still recovering from a recent operation so I’m bored. I’ve not been able to play it for protracted periods as it’s difficult for me to either sit or stand for long but over the last couple of days I think I’ve played it enough to get a fair idea of what it’s like. I’m afraid I never did try the guitar with the stock pickups as I immediately changed them to a spare set of PRS pickups I had lying around so this review is done using a PRS HFS/VB combo. I would also point out that I bought this guitar used.
General
I thought I’d better start by pointing out the general condition of the guitar as it’s used. Overall, I’d say it was in very good condition. There are some marks on the back, presumably made by someone’s belt, but they’re not too severe and can really only be spotted if the light is right and they’re more indentations than scratches as the paintwork isn’t broken. On the rest of the guitar, the bodywork is excellent. It did take quite a bit of setting up and this was certainly partly because it arrived with a set of 8-30 and I use 9-46. Nevertheless, the truss rod needed to be adjusted, the intonation was out, the action was too low and the fingerboard was filthy. I sorted all of that out before starting to assess it for this review.
Body
Leaving aside all of the work I had to do to set it up properly, which I assume was down to an inexperienced previous owner, I’d say that the build quality is excellent. It has a mahogany body and mahogany set neck with a flame maple veneer in a honeyburst finish and I must say that when you pick it up, it feels like a very solid instrument. The body is thick and acoustically it has a rich and mellow tone that is slightly dark but not excessively so. My PRS guitars are a touch brighter. There are no blemishes on the paintwork and the neck join looks to be very good indeed. The hardware clearly isn’t top drawer but it looks a long way from bargain basement and is perfectly serviceable for either home or live use. The binding on the body and neck give it a real quality feel and at no point did I feel like I was playing a cheap guitar. My PRS guitars certainly look and feel superior but the difference is a lot closer than you’d expect given that the PRS costs three times as much.
Neck
I adapted to the neck very quickly. It’s much closer to a slim Gibson neck than the old baseball bat. It feels a little thicker than the Wide Thin necks on my PRS’s but the difference isn’t that great. A touch more narrow and a touch thicker but nothing that held me back for a second. Again, the finish on the back of the neck was excellent and felt nice in my hand. Once I’d given the fretboard a good clean I was surprised to find that the rosewood looks much better than that used on either of my PRS guitars. It has a lovely dark colour and feels good under your fingers. The frets felt very big compared to those on my PRS’s but that’s just one of those things and again, I adapted quickly. Much like PRS, Vintage seem to make their nuts only for use with very thin strings so I had to do a bit of filing to get my 9-46 set to fit properly. The tuning pegs do feel cheap compared to the ones used on a PRS SE and I’d say this was the only part of the guitar that had me obviously thinking ‘budget’ but having said that, the guitar holds tune very well. In time I may well upgrade but it’s not an urgent matter.
Playing
I’ll keep this bit short and sweet as I wasn’t using stock pickups but I will say that it gives a very full and rich tone, just as I would expect from a Les Paul. Other than a proper Gibson, no Les Paul I’ve ever played has sounded any better and some, like the Epiphone, didn’t sound as good as this and I’m basing this on its acoustic sound as well as its electrified sound so it’s not just down to the PRS pickups. The sustain is absolutely endless and to me, that suggests a well made guitar.
Conclusions
I’ve tried plenty other Les Paul copies from ESP, Ibanez, Cort, Tokai etc. and none of them were noticeably better quality than this Vintage, despite costing considerably more money new. Around the web you’ll find the odd insane person claiming this is as good as a Gibson but let them keep smoking whatever it is they’re smoking and see the Vintage V100 for what it is. OK, it’s not as good as a Gibson but then this only costs £200 new and you can pick up a good used one, like mine, for just over half that. Where it does score is in comparison to other, cheaper Les Pauls. From Epiphone I tried an Ultra and a Prophecy, both retailing at £500 and they were absolutely no better than this V100. In terms of sound, this was much closer to the richness I experienced with a Gibson Studio than the Epiphone achieved and the same could be said of the Ibanez ART and ESP LTD Eclipse I tried. If you want to suggest a really good quality starter guitar to someone, this would be a very good choice and if, like me, you’re after a cheap Les Paul to play around with, this will also do the trick very well and save you quite a bit of money. I will certainly be using this guitar live, along with both of my PRS guitars and in due course I will certainly put some Bare Knuckle pickups in it because I feel it’s good enough to warrant the investment.
