I had to do the same fret polishing and saddle filing. First day of playing my fret hand fingers were stained black. High E would get plucked right out and was hung on a barb. No tone on that string until saddle filing. All fixed and love it now. I have the Crestwood Custom 150th with trem.

You could have adjusted pickup and pole heights to balance the pickups out. They are probably wound pretty close to each other and their placement is what's affecting the balance. Also, Gibson used to use their ceramic mini humbuckers on almost everything they made with minihumbuckers before realizing that they sounded horrible and went back to alnico. Those may have a factor in your experience with Gibson mini's. Having said all of that, even top of the line guitars from a budget brand need to played in person before being purchased. The reason is that any reputable dealer will set up a guitar properly before having it on the sales floor. I wouldn't consider spending close to grand on a guitar sight unseen, unless I knew how to set up a guitar. These aren't necessarily a quality control problem, but a disconnect between retailer and manufacturer. Not all guitar companies realize that when a brick and mortar dealer is bypassed by warehouse sellers that all of the things that dealers actually do for those companies are bypassed. Unfortunately, that usually means a decent setup. I thought that Gibson USA were doing setups for top tier Epiphones, but it sounds like that's not the case any longer. Sorry for your experience, but live and learn, I guess.

I just received a Sire S7 and I love it. It was between the S7 and this Wilshire. I think you convinced me to pick this up next. Hopefully it will still be around this summer. Thanks for the great video!

It is super cool. Pops had an original and I'll never forget it. They should have done oval inlays on the fretboard for heavens sake.

I have Crestwoods for the both the anniversary series and the regular issue. I liked the lower output pickups on the anniversary model. Both guitars compare well with the edge going to the 2023 anniversary. Added comment in Feb 2024. I took my Crestwood (non 150th anniversary) and dropped in a set of Lollar Firebird pickups. It’s much better guitar now. It’s a keeper along with my 150th Coral Crestwood. I might get one of these too. Epiphone has upped their game recently.

Your amp is where you get headroom. Not from the guitar

This color 😍👌🏽

I'm glad I stumbled upon your video about this guitar. I was thinking about buying one, but hesitated since I earlier have had problems with every Gibson and Epihone I owned. All of those guitars are now long gone. I have a $150 Harley Benton that is better built than the $2500 Gibson I had. It has left some...trust issues. And since the Gibson "Authenthic" debacle, Gibson is pretty much a dead brand to me. I think maybe Epiphone is becoming that as well, which is a pity...

I had one of the 2010 Wilshire's and it was such a great guitar. My only gripe was the position of the output jack. I ended up having to sell it because of an Army deployment. Ever since it's been one of those guitars I've gone back and forth on several times.

Excellent video I bought an Epiphone Les Paul Pro 2 and it had a couple of high frets as well. It was Stupid Deal of the Day though at $350 so I really couldn't complain much.

The elephant in all the rooms these days, is the fretboard. Dry, weird colored Laurel boards are just hard to get behind. Can they not be roasted? Is maple only permitted on Fenders? Why can't we darken some of these boards, like they do with maple? Maple, Rosewood, and Ebony boards are what we are used to seeing. Make the Laurels and Walnuts or whatever, just look a bit darker, so they look like guitars still.

Hey Sunny. I hope you're doing fine. Thx for your true in depth review. Yeah, the qc is still a problem that sucks. You know how many guitars i owned and played in the past. Ibanez has still the best qc by far, even in the lower price range.

Love the clean tone!

Thanks for this video! These guys polyurethane or thinner nitro?

Nothing disappointing about Epiphone.. Epiphone are back to primium brand after a long layoff Epiphone was never meant to be a budget brand in the first place and they weren't until Norlin ruined them when they took over Epiphone and Gibson..JC Curliegh ends that in 2019 by restoring Epiphone back to where they should have always been.

Love the looks and features on the Wilshire but how in the world are they selling this for $900?? If your quality control issues are common, this should be a $400 guitar at best.

They missed a chance with that batwing headstock, to do some cool multi-surface colors, IMHO.

Hey do you know what other cases might fit the wilshire shape? I hear they fit in ones designed for sg's and maybe a tele but haven't gotten confirmation

Great camera work

I guess for once I lucked out...mine did need neck and bridge adjustment, but that was it...and the adjustments did hold.

At the 0:05 mark he says "now I want to get straight to the negatives", but then you have to wait until 6:26 for that. WTF???

I have a 78 Deluxe with the mini humbuckers. I consider it my magic guitar. If you set the volume and tone correctly "its warm with unending sustain". Use both pickups, turn the tone knobs down to like 2 or 3. Volume on 9 or even 10 and this guitar sings. You can not set the volume and tone like you would a LP Standard. It's not the same guitar. People say the deluxe is bright. I disagree. Of course it's a matter of taste too. I wouldn't mind having the Epiphone Wilshire. I would probably love it.

Damn, sorry you had this experience. I ordered one and had a similarly dry/scratchy fretboard, but haven't had the same issues with bridge saddles, tuning stability, and haven't needed to make truss rod adjustments. All of which is to say Epiphone/Gibson are still clearly very, very inconsistent with quality control. Still, I like this guitar better than any of the Gibsons I've tried in recent years, so investing in the necessary tools - even at a higher baseline price point - feels like a small trade off for such a great sounding guitar (that doesn't neck dive!!).

does anyone know why the bridge pickup polepieces face the neck instead of the bridge?

Looks like this new series is about the same quality as the 2020 crestwood and wilshire reissues. Which is sad because that series is about 50% cheaper!

Very nice sounding guitar! Just adding to your comment I recently played a Gibson deluxe with the mini humbucker‘s and I didn’t like it either. Way too bright and snappy for me but on this Wilshire they sound superb.

I mean...how many truss rod allens do we all own, in current year? 20? 50? If more, you might have a problem but if less than one, you also have a problem.

Drop some Duncan P90s in that baby rock td out!!!

If I buy this guitar, how much will it cost me to fix all the issues you mentioned?

´Handcrafted in China’ says it all…very disappointed, especially as I was hoping it could replace my 64 original crestwood custom.

45 day no questions asked return policy = We can do this forever, just keep sending me guitars, until one is correct.

Is the neck chunky?

Bought the same guitar, different color, about a month or so ago. Plays great, was set up perfectly, the frets needed nothing done to them, and pickups don’t sound to bad either. Here is a video of me playing it through my Headrush MX5 and two frfr headrush speakers. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h7mffatn2rG6Yp8.htmlsi=YujPDgrzUtg9EeNT

😍😍😍

🎯

Great guitar to take lessons on!

Ya need to yell next time because I could hardly hear ya. But good video

It's totally out of tune.

The guitar is fine.the player needs work.

Epiphone reissued these after several emails, twenty years ago from me suggesting that they do so. The miserable so and so's didn't even say thank you. I suspect someone at Gibson took the credit for it. These are seriously overpriced.

You should tune it first