There’re so many guitar brands out there. However, if you’re on a budget and need a guitar that has all the perks of a high-end guitar, then you can’t go wrong with an Epiphone. However, there’s another competitor in the market in the form of LTD Guitars.
With hundreds of different brands out there, it can certainly be confusing as to which guitar you may want to buy to have the perfect experience for you.
Epiphone and LTD are two such guitar brands that you can choose from, and they are certainly some of the best guitar manufacturers out there.
Both are considered to be competitors, but you will certainly need to ensure that you know a bit more about the two brands if you want to get the best possible experience from the guitar that you’re going to buy.
| Features | Epiphone | LTD |
|---|---|---|
| Parent Company: | Gibson | LTD |
| Origin: | Turkey | Japan |
| Founded: | 1873 | 1975 |
Epiphone Guitars
Epiphone is a Turkey-based electric guitar manufacturer that sells its products all across the globe and you will certainly get a great experience from them.
Epiphone has been in business since 1873 and moved to NY in 1908 and has been offering their products out of Nashville, TN ever since. Nevertheless, you’ll be able to find Epiphone guitars all across the world.
A big reason for this comes from retaining good customer satisfaction and you will be enjoying a perfect touch of contemporary features and older looks that will be the best combination for softer genres such as folk or pop.
Design
One of the things that you should know is that all of Epiphone’s guitars are made in Asia, in factories that are owned by Gibson.
Most guitars from Epiphone are made using mahogany, although some of their cheaper guitars are made using poplar or Okoume.
Many of their guitars have a maple top, they also have more expensive models which are made using quilt maple.
Epiphones cutaway models, or the Les Paul’s, are by and large their most popular products, although you can also get other choices like the SG models.
Neck
Most Epiphone guitars have a set neck, although there’re quite a few that come with a traditional set neck. This makes their guitars an excellent choice for people who want to customize their guitars a bit.
The majority of Epiphone guitars are made with a rosewood fingerboard, especially the more premium lines.
However, there’re quite a few that are made using Pau Ferro, with some very exclusive lines with the fretboards being made from deluxe ebony.
Finish
Due to their low pricing, the company often cuts costs. It’s one of the main reasons most Epiphone guitars feature a polymer finish.
For those who don’t know, polymer is a common choice that’s cheaper, and it’s quite durable, making it a pretty decent choice for Epiphone guitars.
Sound Quality
Like most Gibson guitars, Epiphone also uses humbucking pickups. These pickups provide a rich, warm tone that you won’t get with a conventional single-coil pickup.
However, Epiphone also uses cheaper pickups, so don’t expect the deeper sounds that you’d get from an expensive Gibson. Overall, Epiphone is a great guitar brand that firmly targets the budget market.
LTD Guitars
LTD Guitars is a subsidiary brand established under the ESP company in 1996. The aim of LTD guitars was clear from the beginning – they were meant to provide players with limited budgets an opportunity to try, enjoy, and own ESP’s famous models but at a much lower price. As a result, most LTD guitars are in fact almost-perfect copies of their ESP counterparts, just cheaper.
Of course, this involves some necessary and understandable compromises. LTD uses fewer exclusive materials and components, applying a very different approach to production and assembly, and so on.
Nevertheless, as we’ll go into more detail below, none of these trade-offs really ruins your player experience or compromise the guitars’ ability to perform, and will even surprise players with their impressive sound and playability.
Design and Build
When it comes to design, LTD doesn’t stay far behind its more expensive brother, the all-mighty ESP. After all, most LTD guitars are openly inspired by or even fully copying some of the ESP guitars, including their shapes, styles, designs, names, and finishes. Many unsuspecting players mightn’t even be able to distinguish between some of the LTD and ESP guitars.
However, when taking a closer look, you’ll surely notice several obvious differences that won’t let you doubt which of these guitars is the original and more exclusive one. It’s mostly because of some minor details like blemishes on the guitar’s finish, less precise details of the body shape and curves, use of more common (cheaper) tonewoods and metals, etc.
While none of these weaker points really pose any major problem for most beginner or intermediate guitarists, pickier musicians or instrument collectors who are after total visual perfection will naturally prefer ESP to LTD.
Construction and Materials
If you want to make a cheaper guitar, you’ll of course need to cut the costs of its production. And that’s exactly what happens with LTD guitars compared to ESP instruments. While ESP guitars are mostly handcrafted in ESP’s own factories in Japan and the USA, LTD guitars are mass-produced in Korea and Indonesia (depending on the particular models and series).
Obviously, this cuts the costs by engaging more machinery and automatization, and also cutting down on manpower. Although, the downside is that it means that the products won’t go through the best possible quality control and they’re subsequently more prone to various faults and imperfections.
The tonewoods and materials used for making LTD guitars are also less premium – they include mahogany, maple, basswood, rosewood, and some other budget woods. Nothing exclusive, yet all of these materials are typically an industry standard, so there’s not much to criticize either.
Sound
Do cheaper LTD guitars really sound worse compared to premium and more expensive ESP guitars? The simple and honest answer is: Yes, LTD guitars will generally not sound as great as their ESP counterparts.
Put simply, they just lack the incredible character, power, and clarity we’ve learned to expect from ESP guitars. Obviously, this is more apparent when you put these guitars side by side: for example when comparing the sound of ESP’s legendary Eclipse and LTD’s more affordable EC remake of the same guitar. The sound of the EC remake is clearly far behind the original.
However, let’s put aside the comparison for a moment. Let’s imagine you would simply go to a store with a limited budget in your pocket and you’re looking for a great-looking and nice-sounding guitar with no expectations. LTD guitars would still be able to catch your attention and may even beat some of the presumably more reputable competition.
LTD guitars are, in fact, very good affordable instruments that can be a great option for both on a smaller stage or in a practice room, especially in the hands of an amateur/semi-professional player.
Conclusion
Both LTD and Epiphone are very good brands. It’s worth noting that LTD guitars are made with larger frets and play more like superstrats, while Epiphones will have more of a feel and play like a Les Paul.
LTD guitars tend to grab the attention of shredders compared to Epiphone and are typically associated with the metal genre.