I just recently bought an Epi Les Paul standard and I absolutely love it. I am not sure why, but it came with grover tuners on it. Stays in tune forever, and it sounds great. I think that I picked a good one, but I played it quite a few times before I got it. I think that if you try out some Epiphones, eventually you will find the cream of the crop, if you will. A local music shop in my small town has a Gibson LP studio in wine red. I've heard it is a great guitar, but I like to play my Epiphone more than this one. Awful..... So I think that you can get great guitars from Epiphone, and Great guitars from Gibson, but both also have some pretty bad ones. I say, just play whatever feels comfortable to you, in price, and playing.