Overall, this is an excellent development of the Les Paul genre. The playability is excellent, it's light(ish) for an LP, and with the neck to body join profiling has easy access all the way up to the 24th fret. The asymmetric neck profile isn't immediately visually obvious but the neck sits very easy in the hand and I've found it comfortable for long playing sessions. The belly carve is a nice feature but perhaps could have been extended further into the upper horn for additional comfort (that might be a personal preference though).
The Fishman Fluence pickups are excellent. Very articulate with a good, even response and an extensive range of sounds available. The difference between the "classic" and "modern" sounds is, perhaps, slightly more subtle than I was expecting initially, but after a few sessions playing I've decided this is no bad thing. The difference is that you have a traditional PAF(ish) sound (given the large variability in original PAFs), and the modern setting just gives a slightly more edgy version of that rather than having a large volume jump and being totally in your face. So for my playing style it's quite a useful difference rather than being a completely hot-rodded out there sound. You can mix and match that between the pick-ups, and also individually switch each pick-up to single coil. The volume and tone controls are smooth to operate (and also have a nice push-pull operation) and have a good adjustment range over their operation rather than a steep curve. The combination of the volume and tone controls, and the selection modes for the pick-ups gives a massive range of available sounds. OK, it won't do ice-pick Tele bridge, or completely warm and mellow neck of a full size jazz box, but it'll do pretty much everything in between except Strat out of phase. The whole system is incredible quiet - the guitar is unlikely to be the cause of picking up any mains hum or interference.
The set-up up predictably was high out of the factory and I tweaked the truss rod (nice smooth operation) and the bridge height to quickly dial in what felt good for me. No struggles getting intonation spot on, with the bridge being in the right place such that it was achieved without having to go to the limits of saddle adjustment. A welcome change on a new guitar was the nut slots were cut to exactly the right height making first fret barre chords easy to play straight out the box. Unfortunately the top of the nut was not then filed down leaving deep slots - I'll do that at first string change to minimise any potential binding.
All the hardware is top notch quality, and I've no complaints in that area.
The soft case is OK. It'll be OK for carrying the guitar from the car to the gig, and protection from a shower of rain, but it isn't going to protect it from hard knocks such as something falling on the guitar in the back of the van.
On to the negatives. If you get to a gig and have forgotten to shave, don't worry, you can use the fret ends. Appallingly sharp (I had this with the last new Epiphone I bought (Sheraton Pro II). So another job to do. The next item might just be me being picky. There is a definite ridge on the neck on the top four frets towards the nut where the binding has been masked during spraying. I might scrape that back, depending how much it annoys me long term. More annoying is that the volume and tone controls have all been set at different heights. Basically taking no account of the body carve that means the thickness between the top of the body and the control cavity varies, the controls have just been installed at full depth with no thought of what it looks like on the top of the body. And what it looks like is basically scruffy, with the control knobs sitting at different heights above the body depending on the body carve. This is a practical issue because with a quick glance (or even touch) it can be difficult to tell which position the push-pull controls are set at. I'll adjust those at some point in the near future.
Overall I consider this to be a great guitar and a keeper. But it's not without it's niggles, but thankfully they can all be sorted fairly easily. On the back of the headstock there's a sticker that proclaims "Hand crafted in China". If that's the case there should be more attention applied to the craft to remove the silly issues in the factory, rather than me having to do it myself. Hence 4 out of 5 stars for quality. I'll just have to add that extra star myself and will end up with an excellent guitar. Overall highly recommended if you have the skills to fix minor issues. If you have to pay someone to do it, it might make the guitar less of a bargain.
