Noodling Guitars
Well-Known Member
Took this out for a quick maintenance and ended up replacing the original pickups (APH1s) for a Slash set (it's not much of an upgrade - more of a "just because" thing).
Ever since the E-II line came out, there've been lots of disparaging remarks about the rebranding, the country of origin myth etc... But I have an ESP standard, E-II and LTD (1000 series) here to compare side by side and not just off of memories or guitar store trials etc - and I personally find that fit and finish on the E-II is actually slightly better than the ESP standard. The LTDs are clearly a step down in quality because the fret work is very different. However, it's not the type of thing that would affect playing - they just lack that premium factor in the finishing, but still very nice. Although that being said, I don't own any current LTDs - all of mine are from the MIK era. I heard they're now installing SS frets on the upper end LTDs as a standard thing, so maybe the newer ones close the gap even further.

Ever since the E-II line came out, there've been lots of disparaging remarks about the rebranding, the country of origin myth etc... But I have an ESP standard, E-II and LTD (1000 series) here to compare side by side and not just off of memories or guitar store trials etc - and I personally find that fit and finish on the E-II is actually slightly better than the ESP standard. The LTDs are clearly a step down in quality because the fret work is very different. However, it's not the type of thing that would affect playing - they just lack that premium factor in the finishing, but still very nice. Although that being said, I don't own any current LTDs - all of mine are from the MIK era. I heard they're now installing SS frets on the upper end LTDs as a standard thing, so maybe the newer ones close the gap even further.