The body and neck seem built like a tank (but not so much the hardware). The body is heavier than the majority of guitars I've played, but not the heaviest, and it's quite comfortable to play. Two of the knobs got damaged in shipping, not that big of a deal, I think I have two extra ones like that somewhere.
The bridge pickup really didn't work when I plugged it in, but I opened it up and did nothing except remove the computer plug and plug it back in and it works fine now.
Supposedly you can tell Gibson/Epiphones from fakes by looking inside the cavity:
Surprisingly, there was nothing wrong with the switch:
The pickups are not bad but could be a little better. I did notice (measured) that the neck pickup is a bit hotter than the bridge. I've seen pictures of Chinese guitars with the gold and silver "EMG"s in either position, actually more often in the same positions as my guitar. But it is quite logical that that gold one is hotter and has red wire, when the silver one is less hot and has a blue wire. I'll probably swap the neck and bridge pickups with each other sometime.
The workmanship is pretty nice, not perfect but very nice. The binding is actually more gray than cream, but it's pretty classy. I don't know if they sprayed over a Gibson logo, I can't tell if they did but I asked for no logo. I also asked for no "Made in USA", and I think that they did spray the back of the headstock simply because the serial number is hard to read, no other indication, they did a good job with that.
I've never had any kind of Les Paul before, but I did notice that this has much better sustain than any guitar I've ever owned. And the sustain is not wonky like on a strat or hollowbody, it's very smooth and even and doesn't fluctuate in pitch.
(she/they)
