The best value hollow body arch top on the market: The Epiphone joe Pass Emperor
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- This is in my opinion the best value hollow body jazz style guitar on the market. It offers great quality construction and you can see the attention to detail that's been employed in its manufacture. Great sound from the Epiphone Pro Bucker pick ups, great fit and finish and, great value.
The backing track is from Wikiloops.com, it's a jazz piece called Swinging Moon Cats, and it's created by SoulFingers, JPE and Ernie 440.
The amp used is a D V Mark Jazz 12, with some delay, reverb and a little compression. The guitar is stock standard with flat wound strings.
You Sir, are hands down, the David Attenborough of guitars. ✌🏻😎
Hi Lonewolf, you are very kind, many thanks.
I have One made in Korea buyed in 2012 by second hand....fantastic Guitar....
❤I have a joe pass signature from Korea
My main guitar since 7 years. It's a great jazzbox.
Thank you for your simple and honest review which I share the enthousiasm. I do have the same guitar and I really appreciate its versatility and comfort while playing. When you get the guitar in your hands, you know you won’t be disappointed : it is solid, tight and you can play either smooth jazz to heavy rock. Such a wide range of styles and quality of crafmanship makes it unique.
I'm glad you liked the review, and this guitar is really underrated. It's great value, and the overall quality is way beyond its price.
What a beautiful rundown and beautiful playing and tone in the end! Thank you!
Many thanks for your kind comments, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I am by no means an expert guitar player, but I thoroughly enjoy spending time with my Epiphone Emperor Swingster Royale, a very similar but more Gretch like hollow body. Superb quality and playability for the price.
I have the 2016 model. It feels great and has wonderful sound. 👍
The Pro buckers are just Amazing. Totally agree.
I own one of those guitars. I change the volume & tone knobs from marron to gold like the one he is playing. Also, i replaced the wooden bridge to the tune o'matic bridge. Lastly, I change the pickups to coil splitting. It makes the guitar much more flexible and fun to play!
I have the Epiphone Emperor Broadway its a stunner. Excellent presentation.
He loved that Ibanez JP 20 he played all of the time in the 70's and 80's. that guitar looks nice.
this guitar is great!
I just bought one for my collection and I think it plays like more expensive guitars . I’m very happy with it .
Nice video on it and great playing :)
Hi philandviki, I'm glad you're happy with your JP Emperor, they are really great guitars and much underrated . Thanks for watching my video and your kind comments.
I own one and they’re quality guitars I actually cut an album with it
Great Tone & Grear Expanation !! Thank You.
I've wanted one for a long time ;)
I'm with you on the Epiphones and have one myself. I also have a used Gibson ES-175 that plays and sounds really nice. It has some finish issues but they're not serious. However I'm now looking at either the Heritage Golden Eagle, or their Super Eagle. Years ago I played a Heritage Sweet 16 and that too is a great instrument. You can only find them used at this time. I had a Super Eagle back in the early 2000's and sold it like a dummy. Unfortunately Gibson L-5's have rocketed way out of range ($8K to $9K and up) for normal mortals and that's a damn shame.
I had the Swingster and eventually traded it away. It was nice, sounded great but with the Bigsby tremelo bar it simply would not stay in tune. (I had a luthier do a setup on it so the intonation was correct) I would not hesitate to get a Joe Pass in the future though as I really liked the body style.
Great accurate review. Thanks. This model may be out of production now. Make no mistake, it’s a Gibson. It’s folly to discriminate against the subsidiary products just because they are made in Asia. Asians are meticulous craftspersons. Don’t forget Ibanez guitars are favored by George Benson, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, and Steve Vai. And you can only custom order an ES-175 or L-5 from Gibson for mucho dinero and a long, long wait.
Epiphone was bought by Gibson because of Epiphone's superior hollow body guitars. Make no mistake.
Better than the new Zephyr, Broadway, and Regent...?
I didn’t think this was still available (at least in the US).
Hi, some retailers in the US do have this guitar available, for example AMS, and you can check others on Reverb.
Is there anyone to play a 2006 EPIPHONE emperor regent, single pickup, blonde, made in Korea...???
Hi Dave great review I think you have sold me on the epi JP I want a dedicated jazz guitar I have a fender strat and Gibson SG. I was looking at Ibanez GB and Eastman 372. Also what would be a great jazz amp (Fender tone master/ blues junior Vox ac15) ? Lastly pickup upgrade would the Gibson pro bucker be a good choice. When I upgraded my strat to Lindy Fralin pups it transformed the whole instrument Thanks again
Hi Terry,
The Epiphone Joe Pass is a great jazz box at a really good price. It would be around half the price of either a GB10se, which is a really great guitar, and the Eastman AR372, which is also really something special. I guess it would depend on your budget as the Joe Pass is really exceptional value at around $700-$800 new or around $500 or so used on Reverb. If you get a Joe Pass the Epi the factory pickups are really good, I would suggest the Gibson pro bucker wouldn't show a great improvement. If you really wanted to change the pickups I'd recommend the Seymour Duncan Seth Lover, or Seymour Duncan Jazz, which would give you more than the standard pups. Re Amps, I use a DV Mark Jazz 12, which is a great amp much less costly than either the Fender Tonemaster, or the Vox. The DV Mark is a jazz amp whereas the other two are multipurpose amps. I hope these suggestions are of help.
Thank you so much Dave for spending the time to reply much appreciated I have subscribed to your channel
Oh one last thing are the early Korean (1989) models better than the new ones or vice versa
Hi Terry,
I'm told the early Korean models were really special, but you would need to really search for one in good condition. The Indonesian models are pretty good, I have one and fit and finish is spot on. If you can find an early Korean one in really good condition it would be the best bet.
That's great I now know the one to go for
I recently purchased a ‘92 off Reverb from a great store in Santa Monica, Truetone. It is in excellent shape. Amazing flamed maple. Made at the Samick factory in Korea. Flawless craftsmanship. And has the most amazing neck for my hands. Played it for hours today.
What are your thoughts on this vs the Gretsch Electromatic G5420t with Filtertrons?
Hi, The Gretsch is a great guitar too, but I think the Epiphone has a slight edge on tone, it's got a slightly fuller sound, but there's not a lot between these two guitars. They are both great.
Nice vid and ❤ the JP - mine is the vintage sunburst and is great! How do you have yours setup for relief and action with the flats? 🙏🎸👌🤘
Hi Neil, I have the action pretty low, and around 2mm of neck relief, there strings I use are D'addario flat wounds, 12-52.
@@davidkinsman thanks David 🙏👌
Looks like the floating bridge is a little bit far forward...why?
Hi Dave, the bridge is OK, I have rechecked the intonation and all is perfect, maybe the video doesn't show it well.
@@davidkinsman I am under the impression that the bridge is usually close to the center of the f-holes…not forward of them unless the neck needs the truss rod adjusted and the scale length would be off too
Hi Dave, as I said I checked the intonation after your comment and the setup seems fine so I don't know what to say. I note your comment and thank you for it.@@davemeshamsr6000
ua-cam.com/video/f2D9ksA-jSs/v-deo.html Hi Dave here's another Joe Pass Emperor demo with the bridge in exactly the same place as mine is. Interesting that each one I've checked is similar to my positioning.
How does this compare to the zephyr?
Well Epiphone really do make some great guitars and the Zephyr is another good example and it's a fine arch top too. It's hard to really give a comparison as both the Zephyr and Emperor are excellent guitars and good value.
if it sounds anything like a casino… nooooo. So muddy and vulgar.
The Casino is a thin body. The Emperor is a full size jazz box measuring 16” x 3-1/8”, I believe. I’ve heard the same comments elsewhere about the Casino.
Wasn’t the Casino good enough for The Beatles?
Best value? Lol.