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I bought a 2010 Epiphone Emperor Regent made in Unsung, Korea. I'm amazed that the top is made of solid wood and not laminate as I expected. Since it has a sufficiently wide neck I was able to replace the nut with one with wider spacing (Tusq 6234-00). I also did the other interventions suggested here Epiphone Emperor Regent - Setup and Tweaks by Jazzbow, which I thank. I put the Thomastik jazz swing 13-53 on and the sound and playability are veeery good. It's already become my goto guitar: I'm happy!
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10-29-2023 03:34 AM
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How can you tell the top is solid? The top veneer is spruce for sure. The f-holes are bound, and there are no telltale holes through the top. Have you been able to illuminate the underside so well that you can recognize it's also spruce and has similar grain structure? Be that as it may, auguri! I''ve said many times that my -99 ER will be the last to leave.
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Epiphone advertises a "select spruce" top. It's a laminate, not solid. No matter, it's a good guitar that you love. Everything else is inconsequential.
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Waiting on pics…
I am gaining a new respect for laminate tops since I have had trouble with my solid-tops due to humidity. (I had an Epi JP made in the same factory not too long ago—great guitar, and a solid base for tweaking.)
I think if you live in a place with large humidity swings a solid top is a challenge. All my archtops are laminates, except for a Harmony with a solid-formed top, which seems quite impervious to the humidity or lack thereof.
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Awesome !!
The Epi Emperor Regents are nice playing and sounding guitars. I hope you will enjoy your EER in play it in good health
The early Korean ones being better than the later models with the larger f holes. Did you know that there is a special German run Facebook group for this particular Epi model.
I used to own one. The bad thing about it - at least for what I encountered myself - was the location of the knobs on the pickguard. I found them obstructing my normal way of playing. I replaced the pickguard and reallocated the pots and that made it so much better to play for me. Also, I replaced the tailpiece by a far east copy of a L4/L5 tailpiece. And replaced the bridge as well..
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My -95 version had the knobs placed lengthwise near the edge of the pickguard. The -99 version and newer ones I've seen have them set diagonally near the outer bout of the guard - a much better placing.
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I traded mine in when I acquired my L4CES and missed it terribly.
Just by luck I found a ‘94 in the antique sunburst that I love. It’s a time capsule and I don’t think it was ever used. It plays beautifully, love everything about it including the tailpiece and knob location. She’s a looker too.
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Ive had several of these. Outstanding guitar by any measure mine were by Peerless and were flawless in construction In all cases the stock pickup sucked. for 2 of them I sent the pickups to Kent Armstrong and got back pickups equivalent to a Gibson JS and BJB for less than a new floater and the improvement in sound cant be overstated. For 1 I put his 12 pole floater and that was my favorite. I only parted with these to aquire an acoustic carved archtop (much more $$$). Although this isnt a a fair comparison, I liked my EPIs more than the 175 Ive had for almost 50yrs but couldnt part with the 175 for sentimental reasons. I chased these for many years and after talking with many dealers both in US and Japan have been told unanimously that there was never a solid top of this model made in Korea or Japan (apparently Matsumoko made some CES type solids in the '80s) JD and Fred Archtop have great videos playing these guitars and when played by cats that play as well as these guys youd never know you weren't listening to one of their fine carved instruments.
You scored, enjoy
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Thank you all for participating with my enthusiasm.
Markku, I can say with certainty that it is solid because I tried in the dark to make the smartphone's LED go through the wood and see the result with a dentist's mirror. The result is unequivocal: the grain can be seen very well, without other layers. To check, I checked the top of my Eastman 503 (even there you could see the light with the grain), the top of my Epiphone Joe Pass II and 175 Premium and the back of the Regent (in all of them the light did not pass, except in the top of the 175 in which only an almost imperceptible diffused brightness passed without recognizable veins or patterns).
I also did an Internet search and found here ([jazz_guitar] rare epiphone emperor regent solid top ?) that I am not alone.
Since I couldn't focus on the mirror, I tried putting a LED in the guitar and photographing what you see from the outside. To the eye the result is again evident, but the photo is questionable because the blight wasn't dimmable and I was not able to render the strong contrast between the patch of light and the darkness around it and to focus precisely (and by eye the color of the light isn't so red but more orange!), but you can still see some veins. I know it's a very strange fact and one that I would completely believe just by seeing it in person, but it surprised me and I wanted to at least say it...
However, I am convinced that there are splendid laminate guitars and much less good guitars with solid tops and that it is certainly not the guitar that makes a good piece, but the guitarist. Apart from the surprise of noticing the fact, what interests me is only the sound, which I really like a lot, regardless of how and what the guitar is made of.
Greetings to everyone and thanks again: as a nearly newby, reading the comments of this group has taught me so many things about guitars and jazz, and has fueled my passion for both!Last edited by StefanoGhirardo; 10-29-2023 at 03:56 PM.
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Believe what you want, but try a Google search with the keywords Epiphone Emperor Regent solid top or laminate. Other than one person who said his luthier told him it was solid, the overwhelming consensus is that it is all laminate.
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The plot thickens... We now need an "Unsung hero", an expert who can tell us whether that factory has also made solid pressed tops. Where did Broadway Elitists come from? They are identical in shape. It is conceivable that, to meet a deadline, some idle pressed tops may have been grabbed if there was a hiccup in making laminates. So: carved - hardly, pressed - possibly.
Stefano: is there a center seam and book matching grains on the top?
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I tried to take a photo using some external light to limit the contrast between the darkness outside and the light coming through the top. This is the result.
It's closer to what I see in person and it seems difficult to dispute (unless you think I manipulated the photo!). I know how to google it and I know that "the overwhelming consensus is that it is all laminate". But even if I am embarrassed to appear incompetent or, worse, a mystifier, I prefer to believe my eyes than the Internet.
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Markku,
yes, there is:
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As a woodworker, photographer and guitar player I like the photo evidence. I don't see how you'd get a similar photo from a laminate guitar. Good thinking Mr Ghirardo!
Center seam: my B-120 is for sure laminate, and has a book-matched centre seam.
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Not to rain on your parade but, that center seam can be seen on laminates. I tracked these things for over 10 yrs contacting every seller and asking the same question, everyone of them, dealers, collectors or private seller said the same thing. Like you at first I didnt believe it from the sound and same inspection youve done I believed mine was solid. I was a cabinetmaker so had a pretty good idea I could tell the difference between a laminate and a solid...I was wrong. These are actually so good they play and sound like a solid. Without going down a long "he said she said debate". It has been clearly demonstrated to me they are lam. You have still not seen a solid top on one and only heard about it once through 3rd party thread,I think I saw that also. I will say this that once I was convinced, it did not alter my opinion or satisfaction with the guitars. If you put a good pickup on it your not going to care what its made out of and has the advantage of being a bit more feedback resistant than a lively carved model. Id love to hear from Fred or JD on their opinion.
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To me the photos are quite compelling. Solid-top ES-175s are known to exist, I've learned from this Forum. Broadway Elitist may provide a clue. I was asking about the center seam not to prove a point; I belive there are both lam and pressed tops with and without.
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Photographs can be deceiving. So can the eyes. Whether you would see the grain of laminate layers other than the top layer in such a photograph, or in person, I believe is open to question. If the lower layers were of some wood with an unpronounced or incoherent grain pattern, I'm not at all sure you'd be able to see that in transmitted light. There are also diffusion effects possible as the light travels through the various layers; I think that the topmost layer might have greater effect on what you see than the lower layers.
Originally Posted by StefanoGhirardo
But I haven't done the experiments to find out.
I'm not saying it's impossible for the top to be solid, but I do believe that it's not likely to be solid.
More importantly, does it matter if the top is solid? What seems to me to matter is that the guitar sounds good, or that it doesn't.
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For quite a long time I thought my Epi Joe Pass was a solid top. “Select spruce”. Til I actually researched it. And replaced the pickups.
As an aside, I don’t think it is that hard to do a pressed top as Harmony and Kay used to do. They have their own qualities—very resonant, not as “tony” as a carved top of course, but airier than a laminate.
The question is why more manufacturers don’t do this, but the obvious answer is that a good laminate top solves a lot of problems and is a great feature for many pickups and types of music.
I’m so happy with my laminate Gretsch I don’t think I will ever GAS for another guitar, carved top or not. LOL.
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I thank those who took care not to dampen my enthusiasm with the eventual discovery that the top was not solid. But my happiness was exclusively due to the sound of the guitar, and very limited by the fact that I know that almost all music is in the hands and head of the musician, certainly not in his instrument. Regarding the construction technique: I have a laminate guitar (Epyphone Joe Pass Emperor II) that I prefer to a more expensive one with a solid and carved top (Eastman 503). So I'm immune to the allure of the solid top. But I'm curious and when I had the suspicion that the Regent (maybe even just that Regent) had a solid top, I couldn't help but investigate.
I believed that to be sure that it was solid wood it was enough to check the grain with a passing light. Dconeill put forward a plausible hypothesis that seeing the grain of the wood with passing light was not sufficient. This morning I cleaned the underside of the top and checked the hypothesis with the mirror. Not only did I not find "lower layers of some wood with an unpronounced or inconsistent grain pattern", but I found that the grain above corresponds precisely to the grain below. Not being able to focus on the two planes of the floor above and the ceiling in the mirror I had to take two separate photos. The white spots are glue smears, I think from the binding. To verify my assertion just look to the left of the cusp: there is a tangent vein and four veins branching out from the binding on both planes. I checked other points and there is always correspondence between the ceiling and the floor.
I repeat that this does not make me happier or prouder, it simply satisfies my curiosity. But now I have another curiosity left, the same as Markku's: how did it happen? and why? But on this, apart from searching on the Internet and asking those who are more expert than me, I don't know how to investigate. In the meantime I'll play the guitar a bit, but maybe it's even better to practice...
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I had a Broadway Elitist which rivaled my L5ces in every single way. I think it was a Tarada made instrument. Originally Posted by Gitterbug
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I did the same thing. I was a cabinetmaker for many years I used my calipers and some shop fixtures and found the same thing. the grain was precisely lined up top and bottom (mine also had bookmatch top) which I found to be amazing and would love to see their process for lining up the laminates. This alignment may be why these sound so "solid". I shared this discussion with a friend who laughed and said he finally decided to put a mounted pickup at the neck and when he cut the top it was lam. He also said it sounded amazing with a mounted pickup. I asked if hed pull the pickup on his next string change so I could look he said mabey, well see. I would also add that there used to be an unofficial wiki for these epis that has been taken down but was almost completely wrong. A lot of info from that site has been quoted as fact but upon researching found to be wrong. BTW I had 3 they were the same in every respect. If in fact the OP's is solid (and it could be confirmed) it is a rare museum piece that would be extremely collectable ( Id be very interested) if put on the market. Bottom line is the guitar is so good many very experienced players with top collections own have been fooled and no-one seems to care how its made after they play it. As an old mentor once told me "the guitar dont play you man, you play the guitar"
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Sorry to keep this going, but a couple of interesting - and confusing - findings from today.
1) Several sources say that all Epiphone Elitist guitars were made at the Terada factory Japan. That's where the Vestax D'Angelicos came from, including a pressed-top NYL-2 I owned for a few years. So a pressed top from Unsung? Perhaps a test run, but the theory now becomes pure speculation.
2) I took my -99 Peerless ER out and managed to drop a very bright Olight S-1 Baton flashlight inside. Different factory but probably the same specs. The underside of the top plate shows a grain structure similar to the top. Using a sharp dentist's probe, I found the wood softer than the bottom and, especially, the sides. The inside of the back is different, yellowish wood, while the sides appear to be blond maple also on the inside. Could it be that the top is laminated from two plies of spruce and whatever in the middle in whichever orientation? Darkening the room, the 900 lumen Olight did not shine through.
The top of my ER is book-matched, but the spruce is so fine-grained that I cannot find the center seam.
Stefano, how about trying to contact the factory? Their records might have the answer.
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The above dates of 1997 - Current is not correct. End date for this version of Broadway model is unknown, at least for me at this time,
Scroll down for factory codes and serial numbers. Epiphone - WikipediaSaein closed around 2015 and Unsung closed around 2012.
Broadway production started again in 2023 at the Qingdao plant.
Seemingly good information at these various Epiphone links;
Epiphone Wiki Archive
https://epiphone-wiki.org/EpiWiki2/i...c_Archtop.html
https://epiphone-wiki.org/EpiWiki2/index/Broadway.html
https://epiphone-wiki.org/EpiWiki2/i...st_Series.html
https://epiphone-wiki.org/EpiWiki2/i..._Catalogs.html
https://www.archtop.com/ac_08bwy_el.html
https://www.guitardaterproject.org/epiphone.aspx
https://guitarinsite.nl/serienummers-epiphone_eng.php/
Google 'Select Spruce Top' for 'potential' clarification on that topic.
No guarantees...
Have Fun!
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I had several occasions to have the pickup off of my Elitist Broadway and I can affirm confidently it was a solid top; I think it was pressed, but it had a very pronounced arch and a beautiful recurve at the margins.
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Thanks everyone for the useful informations! Excellent idea, Markku: I will write to the factory: as soon as they reply I will post the answer.
Last edited by StefanoGhirardo; 10-30-2023 at 04:31 PM.
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