I bought this cause I've been wanting to get an ES-335 for a while. At first, I almost bought the regular plain top ES-335, but in the end chose the "figured" top. Really glad i did. I chose the Raspberry Tea Burst. I am not a fan of the Blueberry Burst. The one I got has a BEAUTIFUL top. Even though its just a flamed maple veneer, who cares, it still looks gorgeous. Even the back of it looks amazing. It has good figuring in the top and the back. It looks better than some of the Gibsons i was checking out at my local guitar stores. Epiphone really knocked it out of the park with this one. I'm very pleased with the look of the guitar. and it came setup damn near perfect. Super low action, it's just so easy to play. It plays a good bit better than guitars over twice its price. And the sound is pretty damn good. It is definitely one versatile guitar. I mean you can play everything from jazz(obviously), blues, country, rock, and even metal on this thing. I was playing stuff like King Diamond, Judas Priest, etc. just to see if the guitar could handle it sound-wise, and sure enough, it sounded damn good. You can get real good clarity and note definition from the pickups with higher gain, not muddy sounding, unless you go out of your way to make it sound like crap. It can also handle the cleans with ease. Overall, it's one damn fine guitar, and I would recommend it to anyone, Period. It's just so versatile, you can literally use it to play anything (that doesn't need a whammy bar, of… read more course). Speaking of whammy bars, I might even get a Floyd Rose FRX for it just to make it the Ultimate Guitar. Like I said, It's One Damn Fine Guitar.

read less