Firebird questions...

hi all,
i just found this site this evening and sure enough i had a few ideas buzzing in my head. first off, i am pondering buying one of Epiphones new firebird guitars...i played a gibson model and just loved it...however when i saw the price tag i quickly put it back on the wall!...i have been watching on ebay as well, but still out of my price range. does anyone have any experience, hear-say, or general knowledge with the Epiphone model? also, i plan to get the 3 pu version with vibrato...i have read that the selector switch is a 3-way, which doesn't make a bit of sense to me??? i would assume there could be 6 options(neck alone, brige alone, middle alone, all 3, neck and middle and so on)would it be possible to put a replacement 5 way in there without much trouble and in turn have the extra 2 tonal options? am i misunderstanding something? would it even be worth it? also, i am not crazy about the epi tuners...would it be possible to replace them with the banjo type...again...possible? worth the trouble?...i have heard that some of the other parts may be worth switching out for Gibson or equal quality parts(such as pu's)as well. i am pretty new to the guitar world and i would really appreciate any help you guys may offer. thanks!
best regards

How are you doing Perattzi, I guess you are talking about Epiphone's 1963 Firebird VII, I took a look at it on a couple of websites, read some buyer reveiws, looks to be a pretty decent guitar, and quality looks good for the price, you may want to check Harmony Central for some reveiws, as far as a 5 way switch goes, I'm not aware of any Gibson style 5 way switches, Gibson seems to want to stay ignorant of all the possibilities that a 3 pu guitar could have, but I think it is possible to get most, if not all of the pu combinations you want just by switching some of the wiring and using the volume controls, each pu has it's own volume on that guitar doesn't it? As far as the banjo tuners go, I think you kinda said what I think, possible, yes, worth the trouble and expense, probably not, even on the old Gibsons I don't think that was something that players fell in love with, my suggestion to you is, if you do get this guitar, that you play it and get used to it for at least 6 months, before you go making any major changes, you might just learn to love it the way it is..............................Good Luck!

I have not owned an Epiphone however the Guitar Tricks rumor mill seems to think that they carry a lot of bang vs buck however the quality control is not brilliant (i.e. you can end up with a dog featuring cracked neck joints, warped neck etc etc). This makes it very important (especially when buying stuff from eBay that cant be returned) to try the exact same one you are going to buy before parting with any cash.

As far as tuners are concerned, I have had two Gibson LPs (a Studio and an Classic) and I have swapped out the tuners and replaced them with Sperzile each time. This is not because I think the Gibson ones are bad but because I think that the Sperzils are brilliant !