Epiphone Flying V 70s Maui Blue

Pros:
- SOUND - I don't know what pickups are these but omg they sound great. Neck is thick and woolly, the bridge is sharp and clear. Even the middle position sounds great, has a unique flavor. I prefer these pickups even over my EMGs. Sustain for days. The guitar is even very loud acoustically, much more than my other guitars, its very resonant;
- LOOKS - its a stunning guitar, no doubt about it. The shape is a classic and the finish is freshhh. Not a single flaw in the finish or wood work;
- COMFORT - its great to play sitting or standing, the fingerboard is flat and big and fast;
- TUNING STABILITY - its very stable and the tuners feel great, nice even turning;
- WEIGHT - its very lightweight
- PLAYIBILTY - having strats and superstrats as my main instruments, this one felt very weird at first, but you get used to it and now I cant put it down. It calls to me and wants to be picked up all the time like its my baby.
- VERSATILITY- it does it all. Albert King? You got it. Electric Wizard? Bring it. Steve Vai? I can't play that, who are we kidding.

CONS:
- NECK DIVE- its a classic V shape problem, but easily fixable with moving the strap pin. I don't understand why they don't come like that from the factory, but instead choose this ridiculous placement. Having the pin on the tip of the upper wing looks bad with the strap hanging from it, it takes away from the cool shape, its just not aesthetic. Moving the pin fixes all that, but leaves you with a little whole in the position of the original pin;
- PICKUP SELECTOR SWITCH POSITION - why oh why would you put it there. I get it that the original Gibsons from that era had it there, but its just bad design. You cant seamlessly switch pickups while playing because the volume and tone knobs get in the way, you have to jump over them to get to the switch. I'm trying to get used to it but it bothers me very much. Also, the selector sometimes doesn't "take", but once I jiggled it a fair bit, I guess the pieces fell into place and now it works.
- GLOSS NECK - not too bad but I would prefer a mat or satin finish, but it is what it is.


NEUTRAL
- SIZE - the guitar is big! I was not expecting that, having never played a V before;
- setup - it came with an awful setup but that's to be expected.

All in all, I love it. Thanks to Thomann for ultra fast delivery.

The guitar look even better in real life!
The pickups are a little bit quite then my other guitars but they sound really good for blues and rock. For metal you need to give some extra boost.
I will probably switch them to emg but it’s just because I always prefer them. But even with this pickups this is the first guitar i pick when I want to play although I have more expensive guitars.
The fret edges are not very smooth but i will not consider them to be sharp. When I play i don’t feel them at all.

Für 699 Euro liefert Epiphone hier eine Flying V im 70s Style ab, die ihresgleichen sucht. Auffällig knalliger Look (natürlich Geschmackssache), Ebenholz Griffbrett anstelle eines Indian Laurel Palisander Derivats, Grover Tuner und kräftige Humbucker ganz ohne den sonst so typischen Epi-Mumpf zu gefallen.
Etwas zu wünschen übrig lässt die Qualität der Bundierung bzw. der Bundenden. Diese sind teilweise scharfkantig und müssen auf jeden Fall noch etwas nachbearbeitet werden. Auch sind auf dem Griffbrett an einigen Stellen leichte Abdrücke und Macken zu sehen, auch das geht besser.
Alles in allem aber ist die Flying V ein Spaßgarant und ihren Preis definitiv wert!