Epiphone ES-339 Ultra review (the bad)

 Review of the Epiphone ES-339 Ultra

Epiphone ES-339 Ultra built in chromatic tuner

As promised in my previous post, "the good", here is the second part of my review of the Epiphone ES-339 Ultra. It's time for the "bad"!

About 35 years ago I took guitar lessons for some years. At that time I played a classical Yamaha guitar,  nylon strings, and the pieces I played where also classic. Nylon strings and fingerpicking. It's a big step from a classical guitar to an electric guitar, but the semi-hollow body of the ES-339 Ultra still gives me the feeling and the natural sound of an accoustic guitar. Begin january 2012 I bought the guitar at my local guitar dealer.

The bad:

The Cherry-red color on the Epiphone ES-339 Ultra looks great, and overall the laquer finish is excellent. I'm sorry to say that not all of the guitar has the same building quality. The edges on the inside of the f-hole are rough; no sanding here. Further more the first 2 frets on the fingerboard are not polished well. When bending the high "e" and "b"strings they rasp and it all feels a bit sticky, I hope you get my point. Also the battery-lid in the Shadow Nanomag control compartment at the back of the guitar raises about a milimeter above the rest of the panel.

Last but not least, 2 out of 4 volume knobs move very loose when turning, and when all knobs are turned in "0" position they are not outlined.

Didn't I notice these issues when I played and bought the Epiphone ES-339 Ultra? My fault, I was blinded by the looks......

I mostly play the Nanomag in combination with the neck pick-up. After some experimenting with all possible combinations between the Nanomag and both the humbuckers I noiticed that with both pick-ups selected, with the toggle switch in the middle position, the output was weak, and from my hearing, only the neck pick-up takes part in the play. When searching the internet (Google: problems with Epiphone Ultra) I learned that also other (ES-339 and Les Paul) Ultra owners experienced the same problem with the electronics.

Gibson also noticed the problem, and they posted important information for Epiphone Les Paul Ultra III and Ultra 339 owners!
Finally I have problems with installing the Guitarrig software which can be downloaded for free when the Epiphone ES-339 Ultra is purchased, but that's a nice topic for a future review.

Epiphone ES-339 Ultra body

Service:

As a service my guitar dealer offers every buyer a guitar set-up with neck adjustment and new stringing within 6 months after purchasing a (steel string) guitar. About 1 week ago I took the ES-339 Ultra and the printed information from Gibson to the shop. As their repair-staff is not familiar with the Epiphone ES-339 Ultra electronics they offered to send the guitar to the Gibson / Epiphine service center (in Europe), free of charge, and that's todays status. My guitar has left the building.....  I'll keep you posted!

Epiphone ES-339 outputs

Service update 1:

I received an email from the guitar dealer, informing me that my Epiphone ES-339 Ultra came back from the Gibson / Epiphone service center. The guitar has been at the service center for about 1 week. Also they asked me to inform them what kind of strings I wanted my ES-339 Ultra. Normally I would have chosen for D'Addario as I had them in my early years on my acoustic Yamaha (nylon strings, not steel strings), and I have always been content with D'Addario, but I read a lot of good things about the strings from Elixer (more about strings in later posts) so I choose for Elixer '10 strings. The dealer will restring and set-up my ES-339 Ultra.

Epiphone ES-339 Grover tuners

Service update final:

Today I picked up my ES-339 Ultra from the guitar dealer! The guitar has been away for about 2 weeks.

Restringing is done by the dealer, it now is stringed with Elixer. I don't know what strings have originally been on the guitar. The Gibson / Epiphone service center has replaced the neck pick-up, an Epiphone Probucker by Alnico. I had little time to check all functions and electronics, but it appears to me that everything works fine now. Both probuckers can be selected and they now give a firm output. So far so good!