Whats the difference between Gibson & Epiphone?
• Epiphones are made overseas – e.g. in Korea where labor costs are cheaper. • Some Epiphones are made by OEMs – “Original Equipment Manufacturers”. OEMs make products for another company. Samick is a big OEM for epiphone, it makes a lot of epiphone guitars to epihone’s specs. Epiphone rebrands them as epiphone guitars. Other examples of this are Yamaha’s Taiwanese acoustic factory and the guitars that it makes for Fender. • Epiphones generally have a lower-grade wood than their Gibson counterparts. That can mean anything from the wood being less resonant to looking more cosmetically inferior. The wood used in Epiphones is generally not the same quality as that used in the U.S.-made Gibsons. • Epiphones generally use thinner veneer tops for cosmetics. The Epiphone Les Pauls use a thin veneer of maple for their figured maple tops instead of a thicker slab that’s used on the Gibsons. Does this mean that epiphone makes a lousy guitar? Absolutely not – it’s excellent value for what you pay
