The Best Electric Guitars of the ESP brand

I’ve bought this guitar because i needed a solid and good sounding axe to play with the band . And i’ve got to say , i’m not dissapointed at all , i’m actually very impressed

Pros:
– The Finish is incredible , it feels so good and you can sense the work that has been put into the instrument
– The Pickups are great , the output that they have is really good to play aggresive and punchy stuff , you can really work with the sound that this guitar offers . Me and my band are kind of a Heavy-Groovy Metal so if you’re looking for a guitar to play similar stuff , this might be your way to go .
– The look of the guitar is awesome , really , It’s a single cut with a matte finish and amazing decals on it , can’t have anything against that

Cons:
– As you’d expect a Les Paul guitar to be , it’s a bit heavy , not too bad though , so don’t worry thinking it’s weighting like a tank , but it’s just a bit heavier than your regular standard style guitar
– I find that it’s going out of tune regularly , i can’t say if it’s the lock-in tuners , or maybe i should’ve tighten the screws of the tuning keys tighter , i can’t tell why is that , but it’s not a tragedy considering it’s not a floyd rose guitar neither a guitar with EverTune Bridge to stay in tune really really good , so i can’t say it’s a horrible thing at all .

Overall :
This is a solid choice , you’re getting awesome sound for an aggresive and metalish type of play , the look and the finish of the guitar is just marvelous , and the cons are not even things that are impossible to work with . I recommend this guitar to anyone that’s looking for a crunchy , punchy and rich metal sound . Combining this with an awesome Head amp and Cab , it will be a beast !

EMGs, ESP – do I need to say more? If you are browsing for a guitar, you have probably already watched countless videos of pickup tone comparison, reviews, wood type, bridge type and all other guitar geekness you could come up with.

This guitar was ordered as a replacement to my first Thomann purchase, which was an EC-1000 but with Seymour Duncans in it. The pickups kinda need more "oomph" for my taste (I’m a big metal guy), so I have decided to go with EMGs. BUT, BUT – the first guitar did arrive damaged, and it seemed as though the finish started coming off and Thomann were ever-so-generous to actually take the blame (even though it cannot be confirmed, the guitar was upheld in Customs for 3 weeks), so they have agreed to fully refund me – and this is where this metal beast came through.

The ordeal was a nightmare, but it is finally over and this guitar, it is just utter perfection.

I’ve played on an Ibanez S470 with ZR Tremolo bridge and my hand placement needed heavy adjusting, but the playability, the everything is just freaking amazing.

Did the guitar come with some standard faults? Yeah – there is a "nibble" where it seems the finish kinda "gathered up" and there is a bubble, but I embrace it. There are chinks in the neck, although you cannot feel it when playing it – then again, it is wood, it is not plastic.

If you are looking for a metal machine with a heavy tone, EMGs and a proper modern Les Paul – look no further, this is the one.

One of the best purchases I have as of yet.

Bought this beauty a month ago to be my 2nd guitar to play less aggressive style music and clean sounds. My first guitar (Ibaneze RGIB6-BK with active EMG pickups) was not suitable for this. And believe it or not this Les Paul can produce clean and dirty sounds and everything even with passive pick-ups OMG :). My black aggressive baritone sits unused for a month already.

Pros:
– Beautiful clean channel sound with coil-split knob pulled out
wide range growl in bridge humbucker mode with long enough sustain (can I describe it wet? but thats different, it is richer compared to dry-ish EMG81 signal)
– decent quality of everything – this is ESP
– price!
Cons:
Just to write here something – the guitar is quite heavy and you will need a strap lock or you drop it some day.
It gone loose 2 times in a month I catched it fortunately.

this guitar is amazing! I was interested on changing pickups and tuners but it is not necessary! All works fine and the stock esp pickups are very warm with some aggressive mids..Looks pretty enough with a nice work at the creamy binding! I would recommend this particular model for value for money satisafction and a guitar that does not get you unhappy with any style of music!

Bought this guitar to replace my 10+ year-old Ibanez S470 (the ZR Tremolo was giving me headache), and boy oh boy do I not regret it.

Always had an affinity towards Les Pauls so I gave it a go – I’ve wanted something that has the classic Les Paul "darker" sound but with playability of an Ibanez – that is exactly what this guitar is. The sustain this guitar gives beats both of the guitars I currently own.

Comparing it to Ibanez and my Epiphone Les Paul, ESP’s neck is not a Wizard neck, however, it is not a "baseball bat" either (which my Epiphone surely feels like) – it is a perfect blend of grippiness.

The guitar arrived with small cosmetic damage (the finish was scrapped on the front (and is very visible), but I am betting that the gorillas at my country’s customs are to blame for that. Even despite that eye-sear, it is simply a beautiful guitar. The guitar has PERFECT fretwork and the mahogany neck is a pure joy to play on. Its "matte" finish is simply the best for long sessions as the sweat will not cause your hand to slip all the time.

What surprised me was how well the guitar stays in tune, even after abusing the living hell out of the G string, it remained in tune (which cannot be said for most Les Paul-style guitars).

As a testament to how awesome this guitar is, the guitar was upheld by customs for 25 days (my country’s customs and paperwork bureaucracy is stuck in the 80s) – even after spending more than a month on the road, the guitar arrived with almost perfect intonation, perfect action and very minimal and acceptable fret buzz (you cannot hear it through the amp, it’s caused by the low action), there was no need to re-adjust the tross rod – I’ve even reserved a local guitar tech’s time to set it up upon arrival – he was also genuinely surprised, nothing needed to be done and only thing left to do was to change the strings.

With the guitar having so many pros, it would be ridiculous to list them all, but to mention some cons:
– The "gold" line that follows the neck is a bit more "yellowish" than gold (this is not visible to the audience)
– The "tune knob" is rather finicky and not "as tight" as the Volume knobs
– If you’ve been playing a Floyd Rose guitar, you will need to re-adjust your hand positioning for palm muting

EDIT: Unfortunately, the damage was too great as the finish started coming off and I had to return the guitar. (ordered an EC-1000 with EMG’s instead) – however, what must be commended was the way Thomann dealt with the entire situation as they were more than amazing throughout the whole ordeal.

After this, would I recommend this guitar? Hell yes – I assume I was severely unlucky with the mass produced product and it somehow slipped through Thomann’s hands (ordering this during the height of the pandemic did not help).

I bought an EC1000VB in 2006, and man, it was just superb. EMG pickups (that incidentally were the thing i liked the least about it, and i first swapped the 81 with an 85, then went passive with a set of Bareknuckles), Sperzel locking tuners, Earvana nut (not that it made any percievable difference, to be honest). Perfect finish. It just looked, sounded and felt like a guitar thrice its price.
Few years ago, for reasons that seemed good at the time, i sold it (along with an LTD MH417, but that’s another sad story). And regretted it ever since.

So at last i decided to buy it again, and thankfully LTD now is making an already passive version, loaded with Duncans (a pretty standard combination of a bridge JB and a neck 59).

Still made in Korea, despite the production has already partly shifted to Indonesia. Still looking as gorgeous as i remembered it, but with some difference (obviously apart from the pickups).
No more Sperzel hardware, the tuners are still locking but branded LTD. They work fine, anyway.
No more Earvana, just a generic nut (see above).
A push-pull tone know for coil splitting (and that’s a very welcome addiction)
A macassar ebony fretboard in place of the pitch black Madagascar ebony of the old model (and this is another change i’m really happy about, i never liked both the looks and feel of ebony, and macassar not only looks way more interesting, it could be me, but it’s apparently also less clangy and snappy on the strings)

I can’t be sure, but I suspect the body is no more made of a single piece of mahogany, because the acoustic tone has changed a bit.
It’s somewhat less resonant, less middy, brighter and more balanced – i was a bit perplexed about the choice of pickups on a guitar that i remembered being very warm sounding – but actually they complement very well the “new” acoustic properties.
The bridge JB is well balanced, not too aggressive but perfectly able to handle high gain in standard or drop tunings with ease, and its mid hump make it stand out of the mix in solos and melodic parts.
The neck 59 is not as muddy as i feared it to be, and they both sound very good when splitted.
I don’t think they’ll last long – but I’m a pickup nerd, there’s nothing wrong with them.

This said, the LTD EC1000 is still one of the best guitars you can find for less than 1000 €, but the quality gap with the ESP eclipse is slightly more pronounced (less inapparent, to be fair) than it used to be. I gave it four stars in the “quality” department exclusively because of this very reason. But in absolute terms it’s a five star instrument in all aspects.

I purchased this guitar two weeks ago at Thomann. This is the first guitar in this price range that I ever bought. I have some old guitars and I also purchased a Harley Benton beginners guitar at Thomann six weeks ago.
To make a long story short: the guitar sounds flawless. Together with the new amplifier, it is just beautiful. But unfortunately I felt like something was wrong when I received the package. The Harely Benton Guitar that I received six weeks ago was simply beautifully wrapped and unboxing it was very cool. My son was more than happy. Unboxing this guitar felt like unboxing something that was already returned to the seller and now was re-sold. This was not the original packaging and there were fingerprints all over the guitar body. It almost looked like B-Stock. Although this is kind of ok and won’t effect the sound of the guitar (there are not scratches), it messed the "unboxing feeling" totally up. Having to clean a product first before you can use it is difficult. However, after cleaning it I deceided not to send it back because it is still a great guitar and it works fine. It doesn’t have any scratches so it looks good now. Other than the poor packaging, I can only highly recommend this instrument.
// let me give you a quick update here: after about three weeks, I experienced technical problems with the guitar. There was no sound anymore although cable and amp were ok. I contacted the Thomann support and their help was concerning friendliness, competency, speed and, at the end, customer happiness absolutely flawless. To be honest I never experienced a customer service at the hight quality level. This is why I changed my rating of the overall quality from two stars to five. Thank you Thomann-Team for this exceptional service. You guys rock! 🙂

Great guitar!
I play mostly metal, sometimes punk rock. This guitar handles the styles very well, active pickups provide high gain sounds with great fidelity. I owned several guitars with EMG pickups, I always used to replace EMG 81 in bridge position with EMG 85 due to EMG 81 sounding too harsh and brittle to me. With LTD EC-401 i did not do it for the first time, as EMG 81 sounds just great in bridge position, sound is full a and very harmonic, not harsh in any way. I think this is related to wood of the body (mahogany with no top). I always modify the pickups connection to work in 18 volt mode (two 9 V batteries), which makes the sound more natural and harmonic. This guitar has absolutely best sustain I have ever experienced with any guitar!
The only small complaint about this guitar is instability while playing sitting, guitar body is not very well balanced for that and tends to slip off to the right side, you definitelly need a strap to stabilize the instrument while sitting. However, this is really minor issue and playing while standing is absolutelly comfortable.