ESP LTD Phoenix-1000 Electric Guitar User Reviews

First I would just like to say how much I love the look and feel of this guitar. The vintage white with gold hardware looks slick as heck. The other notable thing you will notice right away is how resonant the guitar body is. Even unplugged it is acoustically "loud". My guitar tech even commented on how much the guitar resonates, its wonderfulThe electronics are perfectly matched and sound simply amazing. In the neck is the phat cat, which is a p-90. It's an excellent pickup for lead work or for whenever you need a strong single coil tone. The bridge is a ceramic humbucker that is voiced like a PAF, but being ceramic the output is a bit hotter than your dad's Gibson bucker. It's got the vibe you expect, just more. It sounds really really good, but if that were not enough, have a pull on the tone pot and it splits the humberbucker, turning into a more Fender-esq single coil. I am typically not a huge fan of the split coil sound, but whatever is going on in there, they got it so it still sounds powerful and articulate. It is in no way a "weak" or "underwhelming" setting for the pickups. The middle position is especially nice when you have the bridge coil split and you are using some modulation pedals.Besides the incredible sound, it's a really well made LTD. I have the Korean made one, but I have other LTDs from the Indonesian factory and they are superb as well. It's a hard tail with locking tuners so it stays in tune real well.If you seek a versatile guitar that looks rad, this might be for you. Covers almost every genera I can imagine and excels especially at the different flavors of 80s heavy rock and metal with it taking honorable mention for classic rock. But as mentioned before depending on your amp you can get some ultra sparkly cleans with the single coil options. Absolutely one of my favorite guitars in my collection.

Sound

Tonally the foundation of this guitar has its roots in the different era's of Gibson Les Paul's. The neck is a p-90 style single coil that would have been on the earliest of the LP's, while the bridge pickup can best be described as a hot-rodded PAF humbucker. The ability to split the humbucker into a single coil greatly expands the tone capacity of this guitar. The pickups respond well to volume manipulation and a huge variety of classic and more modern rock/metal tones can be achieved. Some players of extremely heavy varieties of modern metal may find these pickups to be too harmonically rich for their taste. Its for sure got a vintage Gibson vibe, but it really is versatile.

Features

Everything on the guitars controls are simple are quite useful. The push/pull tone pot, which enables the splitting of the humbucker into a single coil is an especially useful control and allows for a large variety of classic tones at your fingertips.

Ease of Use

There literally is not a bad sound to be had out of this guitar. Depending on what you're playing I have easily found some combination of pickups that suit the vibe of what I'm playing. It's got a single volume and single push/pull tone pot and a single 3 way switch for pickup selection. Simple as can be really. Experimentation is rewarded and its a blast discovering all of the mojo contained in this guitar

Quality

The ESP LTD line is somewhat controversial and sometimes isn't well received by the internet on account of the fact that this line of guitars is made overseas in primarily Asian factories. Most of these naysayers have never played, let alone owned an LTD. I can tell you from first hand experience that the quality of these axes are top notch. This applies to both the Korean and Indonesian factories. I have owed/own multiple LTD guitars and there has never been any issues. The value is hard to beat too, plus if you listen to an LTD then the E-II or custom shop version of the same guitar you would need very very very good ears to see if there is any difference. If you are worried about quality on the LTD's just know that a lot of the flack they get is unjustified.

Value

The selling price is absolutely a good value. Traditionally in the guitar market, it's very hard to find something comparable to a particular LTD for the same price. More often than not, the LTD will have more premium features and be a "higher specced" guitar than the competition.

Manufacturer Support

I have delt with ESP multiple times. Never for any major issues, just small questions or recommendations. They are easy to reach and super nice. Great company that makes an awesome product.

The Wow Factor

Highly appealing guitar. For me personally its style is right up my alley. Color combo is totally rad, electronics are ideal for my playing style, the price is right, and its a brand that I am familiar with and really like!

Musical Background:

Weekend rockstar for 20+ yrs.

Musical Style:

Mostly 80s metal, but enjoy playing everything from jazzy licks to modern death metal

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Submitted August 8, 2023 by a customer from gmail.com

"elated"

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Verified Purchaser zZounds has verified that this reviewer purchased this specific product from us.

Bought this for my son, after playing it, I quickly started looking to get him something else as I am keeping this baby for myself.The craftsmanship is light years better than my old 1976 Gibson Firebird. The Firebird is no dog, but there is not a single flaw on this Phoenix. The pick ups are supperb, as eveeyone knows, but that single coil pull is where it's at! zZounds made it easy and helped our dreams come true. Perfect guitar.

Musical Style:

Johnny Winter to Waylon Jennings

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Submitted November 28, 2022 by Dave Marriott in Thornton, TX

"Oh my God ! I’ll never play a Gibson again"

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Verified Purchaser zZounds has verified that this reviewer purchased this specific product from us.

Got my ESP/LTD Pheonix in Vintage White today. First off, packaging was perfect (Thanks zZounds). Very well packed with wrapped styrofoam around the headstock/body then bubble wrapped then harnessed in with tape in a guitar box the another box! These guys do it right! The guitar itself is beautiful. Love the gold hardware, with the locking tuners it’s just excellently put together. Indonesia has quality people building these guitars but being my first ESP/LTD I’m not as familiar as most on these but the build quilts is really nice. I have to say Gibson Custom Shop might be the only exception to my looking at LTD’s but who can afford that? We’ll, not me at least. Tone of the guitar is amazing. Bright body sound mixed with the JB and Fatcat sounds great. I’m playing through the Mesa Boogie Mini 25 and on the clean channel the Fatcat brings out that brown woody sound especially when I hit the tone knob back just a bit. Really cool bluesy lead tones (Johnny Winter/Al Green) then move to the second channel to more high gain and my god this JB sounds so good in this guitar. I was afraid I was going to have to change it out but it’s staying for sure. Balance of the guitar is really good. Fits the body well but it is different when sitting down practicing than a Les Paul which I’ve always played. Out of the box this guitar was set up perfectly and almost in tune! I looked all over YouTube and saw all the reviews SDS, Fluff and Kyle all loved this guitar so much it sold me and I’m very pleased with my purchase. My 2nd no credit check 12 month deal (I’ll be paying off early though) and really think zZounds has a great thing going with that.

Musical Background:

40 yr PunkRock/R n R/Blues

Musical Style:

The kind you play loud at your sister.

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