Right. So I go to Nevada to try the Gibson ES175.
I cant find it anywhere so I speak to an assistant, who checks and discovers that despite the web page entry, they havn't one in stock.
To salvage something of the visit, I ask to try the Epiphone Broadway, The fattest archtop there. As soon as I picked it up I knew it wasnt going to be good. It wasnt, it was nasty. It felt uncomfortable, and it sounded poor too.
It was run through an orange amp on the clean channel. I tried every configuration of the pickups & tone/volume controls. Everything sounded nasty. Instead of rich mellow dark tones, it gave me mud. The string tension was pretty high. I would rather have a high action than taut strings like this.
It may just have been that guitar, but it doesnt bode well for my further outlook concerning Epiphone Archtops.
Yes, the strings were regular medium gauge and had not yet settled in. They were going out of tune a lot. The PU selector was poor and crackled badly time I touched it.
The only other likely looking candidate was an odd looking matt blue Ibanez which had a lower action and flatwound strings. I didnt try this however.
Maybe I'll persevere with my nylon strung guitars for a while. They sound a lot sweeter than that Broadway.