First Archtop
 

Hey guys.

I'm looking for my first arch top. I love the tone of this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGxdNvhlLCA

It's a bit out of my price range. Any sub 2k archtops that can get that tone and also have fantastic playability?

]Well, there's nothing quite like a 175...there's a reason they're probably the most recorded "jazz guitar" in history.

EpiphoNE makes one now, that gets a heck of a lot of the vibe. Worth checking out.

Eastman makes the 371/2. People like them, but I don't think they sound much like a 175.

You might check the used market for "lawsuit" era Ibanezes and Grecos and such. Great guitars.

You can also find a Heritage 575 sub 2k used. They're not the same as a 175, but you can definitely pull a lot of 175-ish tones out of them.

I'm using a 575 here:

https://youtu.be/SIf-9P1GoWM

Elderly has of the old Tacoma arch tops with the floating pickups at a decent price.

https://www.elderly.com/tacoma-ajf25ce5sb-2000.htm

I'll +1 Jeff on the Epi and also recommend the Godin CW II - depending on whether you're after a '50s or '60s 175-style tone it's available with either P-90's or humbuckers; I've got one of the former (as does Jeff TMK), and through a nice low/mid-powered tube combo you'll be hard-pressed to find better tone/playability/QC for under $1K...

Super cool guitars that sound as much like a 175 that a D-28 sounds like a Taylor 912...

But I kinda wish I haD a spare $1,750:)

Thanks for the leads, guys.

What's the difference in tone between the p90 175 and the humbucker version? Is the p90 warmer and more mellow?

I go along with what Mr. Beaumont says most of the way, but I am one the the people who likes the Eastman371. He's right in that id doesn't sound like a 175, nothing does except a 175, but the Eastman is good value, I think and you can get some nice sounds from it. Mine is the single pickup version. They do a two pickup instrument too.
I think the Godin King Pin equipped guitar has been mentioned. They, too, are nice guitars in your price range. I had one of those but eventually sold it as the seller could or would not fix a small problem. Quite a ffew on this forum like those.
Of course the only way to really find out is to go and try some. Before you go off round the shops, make a list of those to try starting with the most popular ones mentioned on this thread. Have fun! :)

P90 will have a little more bite and clarity, but still be "warm." Great jazz pickups...they can be a little noisy if you play in places with old wiring/neon/flourescents

Some of that can be alleviated by positioning yourself correctly in relation to your amplifier - that's how guys did it in the old days (still do it in some venues with my single-coil guitars) - or taking advantage of the modern wiring scheme on many such instruments, where the middle (both on) position on the selector switch places the pickups into humbucking mode. Although there have been humbucking variations on the P-90 theme on the market for a while now (I owned a '90s ES-135 with factory P-100 stacked soapbars for a number of years) I find them one-dimensional and soulless compared to the original; while humbuckers may have become the dominant jazz pickups over the last 60 years, with Guild's reissue of the DeArmond 1000/1100 suspended pickups and the new crop of P-90 jazzboxes like the Godin CW II players are rediscovering the classic tones that formed the foundation of jazz guitar as we know it today. For the uninitiated, playing a P-90 guitar through an old-school tube combo, at moderate volume, can be highly addictive (speaking from personal experience here) - there's a sweetness and definition to the upper mids that you're not going to get from any other pickup, which lends clarity and articulation to your tone (the Beatles made good use of the P-90/Vox "chime" during the Rubber Soul era); frankly, until I played (and immediately bought) a P-90 LP goldtop in 2011 I didn't realize that was the sound I had been chasing for nearly fifty years - and between the goldie and the Godin I've got just about every style of music covered...

Steve, how is that ES-135?
Is it a viable alternative if I can't afford a 175?

Edit: Looks like it's not an archtop?

I am assuming you are wanting an archtop for plugged in playing, not a purely acoustic archtop.
Here is a clip of the Godin Kingpin with p90 pickups. I agree with Mr. De Rosa. There is a lot to like about P90s. They cover a lot of ground tonally. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QeV6Kx0_-4I

Same guy, this time with a 56 ES 175.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D3kD-1_fyRk

The '90s ES-135 - not to be confused with the '50s version, which resembled an electrified L-50 - was a semi-hollow styled along the lines of the ES-125TDC associated with George Thorogood, and equipped initially with the P-100 pickups I mentioned above (the final versions came with humbuckers). If you're looking for something that sounds like a 175 this isn't it (at least not my old P-100 version - never played one with humbuckers), as the balsa-wood (Gibson called it "Chromyte" :rolleyes:) center block, intended to lighten the weight vis-a-vis a 335/345/355, also lightened as well as deadened the tone to my ears; lacking the impact of the 335, the clarity of the 125, or the smoothness of the 175 - it had an odd, electrified version of that "wet towel" tone than some players (myself included) find off-putting in many Gibson slope-shoulders - it was basically a one-trick pony for me, good for gritty high-gain hollowbody raunch tones (in its favor, it did make feedback more controllable) but very little else. Tried it through a variety of high- and low-power tube and solid-state combos (even a first-gen Line 6 Flextone modeling amp) over the years I owned it - sometimes it just takes the right amp to bring out the best in some guitars - with little success; oh, well - there's some guy in a psychobilly band out there with a dead-mint jet-black dream machine...

HB&P90 tone
 

I believe it is vice versa. Of course there is different sounding pickups in both cases, but when people want more bite, they swap to P90, or some other singlecoil pup.

I shouldn't have clicked on that.....I've always loved Tacoma's

You should check out a D'Angelico EXL-1. Here's a nice video of one in action.

https://youtu.be/AqwTdKqrD3w