lets face it people gibson is sooooooooo overrated if your lucky you can pick up a plain jane les paul for around 1900 bucks. and what do you get for that money a very cheap top that ive seen better wood grain on a 8 dollar piece of ply wood. step up to a AA or better top add at least another 1000 to that price. when in reality that nicer piece of wood maybe costs them 20 bucks if not less. guess who eats the rest of the mark up. they also think everybody wants a 59 style neck on their guitar, damn near 2" wide at the nut and almost as thick. at gibson the word option is not in their vocabulary what a different pick up not happening different color,tuners, or anything you might its not happen. unless yout name happens to be page,lifeson.gibbons well then thats a different story they will do that for guitars gods but for the everyday joe you SOL. dont get me wrong i dont hate gibson guitars they make great guitars have a great sound i just happen to love my hard earned money a whole lot more. i would almost bet any thing in a BLIND test you take any gibson lp put it against a esp,prs,washburn with the same pickup same scale same amp and out of 100 people maybe 5 could actually tell you which one is which. personally if i was gonna spend anything over 2200 bucks i would seriously look into a ed rowman guitar. and what do you get for that you get a CUSTOM guitar the color or paint job tuners of your choice every thing YOU want in the same price range as a AA+ TOP LP.so you i dont have anything at to do with ed roman,the 2 thing i know about him is what ive read about his work,reviews and a friend of a friend i know owns one amazing guitar in looks and sound. in all reality there is basically 5 or 6 guitar shapes and 90% of all guitar are some type of copy, clone of a gibson les paul and a fender stratocaster. 1 other thing that plain lane plywood look top of that 1900 dollar lp is really only worth 800-900 dollars,when yo say the words gibson les paul add at least 1000 dollars just for those 3 words. all your doing is pay for a name thats it.all i am saying is unless its a image thing or you must absolutely have to have one then go for it, but before you lay down that kinda money do your self a favor go to your local music store and compare then do some research on line and see if they offer more options that you might want i.e color,pickups. tuners or whatever. just remember its like a new car once youve walked out the door with it youve already lost several hundreds dollars unless your lucky enough to get x amount of days full refund guarantee. good luck in what ever you decide....
