[gerardo1000]

I was in the area so today I stopped by Huber and Breese, my favorite local guitar store, just to spend some time and see their novelties (among them, a very interesting Gold Tone Mandocello... and a very good sounding Cordoba crossover nylon guitar with a thin body ). They had on display two Epiphone Masterbilt Century Deluxe arch tops, one sunburst, one natural, both with "f" holes. I am not the best expert on arch tops but I had a Godin 5th avenue and a Gretsch New Yorker in the past, and since a few days I am the happy owner of a D'Angelico EX-63. Any way, I played both Epiphone archtops quite extensively (only acoustic) and now I understand why these attractive looking and fairly priced guitars didn't have a great success, at least according to the comments that I read on this forum. In my personal opinion, they sound like a way in the middle between a so so flat top and a so so archtop. Which is absurd because you don't get the sound of a full flat top and you don't get the sound of a real archtop. The top and the back are arched, but not too much. The bridge has a sort of plastic saddle on top of the wood.... I am surprised that Epiphone put so much effort in developing a full line of archtops (the are also round hole models, and smaller size archtops as the Zephyr and the Olympic) and ended up with these nice looking archtops that have such a weird hybrid sound. Maybe their goal was to appeal to "non archtops" guitarists, that are the majority but... I am a flat top player since 40 years and this sort of hybrid does not appeal to me. If I want an archtop, I want an archtop. I also noticed that the price of these Epiphone offers is dropping dramatically. I hope that Epiphone will treasure this experience and will develop in the near future a new line of archtops with a better sound. The idea itself of offering affordable instruments is appealing (see Godin 5th avenue). Good luck with a second try !