After much frustration in the local guitar shops around my area, I finally (with great hesitation) bit the bullet on an ESP Eclipse from EvilBay about a week ago. I was extremely hesitant and have been on edge for the past week waiting for it to get here. I thought to myself that this deal was surely to good to be true. After customs fees and shipping, I wound up paying around 900 Euros. That is about 500 Euros less than anything around here. Today, the long nerve-racking wait came to an end.
The good news- the guitar is physically in absolutely perfect condition, hard-case included. It feels brand new, as if nobody has ever laid a finger on it. All the stickers and case candy were still on the guitar and in the case, he even supplied two sets of strings!
The bad news- the strings were in horrible condition, the setup was terrible, and whoever set the pickup height had strange taste. The SH-4 was maxed out, all the way up to the strings. The SH-1 was about 5 full turns all the way down into the neck cavity.
So, I spent about an hour replacing the strings, intonating, adjusting the bridge, setting the pickup height, so on and so forth. The end result is fantastic! It is an absolute dream to play. The neck is smooth as can be and very comfortable. The guitar is much lighter than any LP I have played. The locking tuners work the way they are supposed to, and the SH-1/SH-4 combo that I hated in my Epi LP actually sounds pretty good in the guitar. All in all, a brand new guitar for a hell of a price!
The attached pictures are really bad and were taken with my webcam. As soon as I get my camera back next week I will throw some photos up on the forum. :D
Updated: I finally got my camera back from the wife and we finally got a sunny here in Deutschland! There are a few more on my post at the bottom as well. :D
