Epiphone AJ-200SCE

The Epiphone AJ200SCE has a 25.5" scale, with mahogany neck and sides, and solid spruce top. It features an Epiphone-made Shadow pickup and a cutaway for ease in playing higher on the fret-board. The solid spruce top and pickup suprised me to have both of these features on a guitar that retails under $300.00.

I didn't particularly enjoy playing this guitar. It did not inspire my playing in the slightest, and I had no problem putting it down after a short bit of playing.

UTILIZATION

The neck had a nice feel to it, a good thickness and nice-feeling radius for string-bending and single-note runs as well as chording. The cutaway allows great access to the upper fretboard when you desire it.
The tone and overall sound did not initially impress me.

SOUNDS

While this guitar boasts a feel and ease-of-play that is rare for this low of a price range, its sound did not impress me in the slightest. It sounded muffled and lacking the volume and projection I would expect of a full-size guitar such as this, although new strings could have revived it a bit. The sound was balanced; not harsh in mids or shrill in the highs, or boomy or muddy in the low end. But it was lacking in dymanics, responding very coldly to my finger picking and varying pick attack.

OVERALL OPINION

Overall, I was just unimpressed and uninspired and I am aware of a few other budget guitars from Takaminie and Seagull that just simply perform better than this one, hands down I'm sure if one looks hard enough and plays enough guitars they will find one that suits them better. I really wanted to like this guitar, with a solid spruce top, a great feeling neck, and decent action but I can't give it better than a 5 out of 10