Vintage Gibson ES-175 Guitars

[jzucker]

If I may, why is the mahogany neck considered better than the maple? What's the difference in sound?

thanks

darker sound. maple is brighter.

For some reason, I really like the look of the '80s hog back and sided 175s. Can that thin layer of laminate sound that much different? Would sure love to play one.

dick onstenk plays one and it sounds really gorgeously dark and fat. Joey Goldstein also plays one like that.

[jzucker]

I do see a volute on Kreisberg's 175. Can that help identify the year?

it was already established by a buddy of mine that it's a '70s or early '80s with maple neck

[disco~juice]

In a workshop in Athens he said that the 175 is a little older than him, and he is born at 1974(almost sure).

[oldane]

It is what it is. Acoustically it has very mid range and small narrow sound. I remember at the time wishing I had ordered the wider body. It sounds very different to the one in your clip. Does not have that depth in the bass.....even though yours is amplified so the comparison is hard.

I think it "might" be louder than a heavier 175 but I'm guessing. But if it was it would only be louder in the mid range.

Old Dane (another list member) described the acoustic sound of his Painter (playfully) as a fart in a tin can.
Pretty close I reckon.
Through the amp it comes to life but without the low end as heard in your clip.
It's an electric guitar. At that it excels.

I agree with Phil here. Part of of the reason for this is likely that my Painter P-350 is only 2½ inch thick which makes it more comfortable to hold and play but also thins out the acoustic bass response. It has plenty of bass amplified, though, and if played through my AI amp head, the bass has to be tamed with the low cut filter knob. I have to add that the acoustic tone has improved somewhat during the two years I have had it - less harsh and also louder. Maybe the 17" body and the 25½" scale helps a bit as does the F-holes (I don't remember if Phils Painter was the model without F-holes, but the body width was lesser than mine). One may say that my Painter now sounds acoustically like farting in a cello :-) . But still, there's no way it can compete with an acoustic archtop with a carved spruce top. The difference between the Painter and my Benedetto and especially my Triggs Stromberg lookalike is immense. Nothin wrong with that, because the Painter is designed (and ordered by me) as an electric guitar. As such it's excellent. I have really bonded with it and expect it to be a keeper.

The top plate of my Painter is thin but the braces (mahogany BTW) are fairly thick and tall and there's transversal braces at each side of the PU, connecting the two parallel braces, which will ensure a good structural stability. Gibson did it the opposite way when they kerfed the braces on the 175: Despite the seemingly obvious, the structural stability was ensured by the thick top itself despite those flimsy braces.

Now, for the earlier discussion of the neck wood (maple or mahogany), I don't think a YouTube clip in which one can se the wood color in the trussrod cut out can lead to any conclusion. The wood in the trussrod cutout is often unfinished and raw/unfinished mahogany can in fact be fairly light in color.

As for the thickness of the tops of the 175, my 1961 175 has a thicker top than the few 175s and 125s from the 1950s I have seen, so I think the thickening set in around 1960. Mayby it bacame even thicker later on, but to be frank I have not played many newer 175s and it was many years ago - never needed to shop for one. FWIW, my 175 does not sound better or louder than my Painter, rather the opposite.

I agree that 175s can vary in tone (amplified) even within the same model year. I liked mine a lot when I bought it in the early 1970s, but in later years, the sound has underwhelmed me. I don't know if it's me whose ears/taste has changed or it'sthe guitar which has changed. I suppose one can not rule out a structural change in the plywood as the glue holding the plywood together age and maybe disintegrates a bit. Gretsch guitars from the 1950s and 1960 is known for literally falling apart for this reason (my structurally very stable 1961 Gretsch New Yorker is an exception which has made me suspect that Gretsch outsourced the making of those low end instruments to say Kay or Harmony).