[Steve DeRosa]

Tried the entire family - Olympic, Zenith, and Deluxe - at Sam Ash last week. Perhaps it's the fact that I've been acquainted with the New York originals all my life, played more than my share over the last 54 years, and owned a '46 Blackstone (cited in the Fisch & Fred book, BTW), but to say the least I was more than a bit disappointed in the overall package; frankly, it's far more than just the question of building to a price - the current Epiphone company has proven capable of incorporating period-appropriate features into their product line - but if you're looking for tone first and foremost IMO you'd be far better-served with one of the competitive Loar models rather than the Deluxe/Zenith, and my Godin 5th Avenue (all-laminated, BTW) just plain eats the similarly-priced Olympic for breakfast, period. I'm well aware that everybody has their own taste, but objectively speaking you might not find the necks - a heavy rounded "Louisville Slugger" shape intended to mimic a generic '30s profile, but which in fact never appeared on any period Epi (some of the '37-39 instruments boasted 1-9/16" necks - a specification that would not see use for another quarter-century - as regular production) - to your liking; in addition, the acoustic projection is far from what it should be for this type of instrument - the recently-discontinued 17" Gretsch Synchromatic 400 makes the Deluxe sound/look like a toy - so take that into consideration as well if you're going to be playing primarily unplugged...