ES 175 Premium - holy freaking cow

**Mr Christopher** · Today, 09:30 AM

I had read up on the Premium ES175 for a good while and finally bought one a couple of months ago, the black satin version. My main guitar is a Gretsch Smoke and I play a lot of hillbilly and blues stuff with a casual interest in jazz, more like I enjoy jazzing things up versus playing straight up jazz. But I still wanted a proper jazz box so I got the Epi.

When I unpacked it the first thing I did was take off the strings (flatwounds, and without even playing it) and put on a set of D'Addario Electric Guitar Strings, XL Nickel, which are my go to strings on all my guitars. I also put lemon oil on the fretboard. When I tuned it up I plugged it in my Fender 65 Deluxe reissue and dang if it didn't sound awful. Thin and gritty. Then I realized some of the oil had gotten on the strings, so after playing it an hour or two the thin, gritty sound was reduced but I was still left wondering why everyone raves about the tone on this guitar, and the Gibson pickups. I assumed I would need to learn what Treble/Bass combination was best for tone, and promptly set it aside and only played it ocassionally.

Later I decided to take it to my guitar guy for a good looking over, I'm not savvy about uneven frets and such and I always have my guy look over a new guitar. He made some minor adjustments and put a fresh set of the same strings on there. And once again I was underwhelmed by the tone and curious why everyone loved the sound but me.

Determined to get to the bottom of the tone disappointment I got a set of Thomastik-Infeld (44-10) put them on and holy freaking cow. It was like a different guitar. I get it. With the flatwounds this might be the nicest tone of any of my guitars. It is so rich and also forgiving, I can play hard and the strings don't "bottom out". And it really comes to life when I add some volume on the amp.

I can't express how much I love this guitar and I'm amazed at how a different a set of strings can make such a difference. I went from "meh" to "I'll never sell this guitar" in the time it took to restring it.

Anyhow, I have nothing of real value to put here, other than I am happy to be a member of the ES175 Premium club!

**Stringswinger** · Today, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Mr Christopher

I had read up on the Premium ES175 for a good while and finally bought one a couple of months ago, the black satin version. My main guitar is a Gretsch Smoke and I play a lot of hillbilly and blues stuff with a casual interest in jazz, more like I enjoy jazzing things up versus playing straight up jazz. But I still wanted a proper jazz box so I got the Epi.

When I unpacked it the first thing I did was take off the strings (flatwounds, and without even playing it) and put on a set of D'Addario Electric Guitar Strings, XL Nickel, which are my go to strings on all my guitars. I also put lemon oil on the fretboard. When I tuned it up I plugged it in my Fender 65 Deluxe reissue and dang if it didn't sound awful. Thin and gritty. Then I realized some of the oil had gotten on the strings, so after playing it an hour or two the thin, gritty sound was reduced but I was still left wondering why everyone raves about the tone on this guitar, and the Gibson pickups. I assumed I would need to learn what Treble/Bass combination was best for tone, and promptly set it aside and only played it ocassionally.

Later I decided to take it to my guitar guy for a good looking over, I'm not savvy about uneven frets and such and I always have my guy look over a new guitar. He made some minor adjustments and put a fresh set of the same strings on there. And once again I was underwhelmed by the tone and curious why everyone loved the sound but me.

Determined to get to the bottom of the tone disappointment I got a set of Thomastik-Infeld (44-10) put them on and holy freaking cow. It was like a different guitar. I get it. With the flatwounds this might be the nicest tone of any of my guitars. It is so rich and also forgiving, I can play hard and the strings don't "bottom out". And it really comes to life when I add some volume on the amp.

I can't express how much I love this guitar and I'm amazed at how a different a set of strings can make such a difference. I went from "meh" to "I'll never sell this guitar" in the time it took to restring it.

Anyhow, I have nothing of real value to put here, other than I am happy to be a member of the ES175 Premium club!

TI roundwounds work on a 175 as well, though you have to use a metal bridge as the TI rounds come with a plain third.

TI flats with a wooden bridge on a 175 works best IMO, regardless if you are using a Fender type amp or a Polytone type amp.

**lawson-stone** · Today, 10:21 AM

I got one back when they were on sale ridiculously cheap. It was astonishingly good and I regret selling it every day. BTW are you sure you got the original pickups? Lots of folks were buying these during a steep discount period, replacing the Gibson Classic 57 pickups, and reselling the guitar.