Originally Posted by: craigsdaddy... You obviously get what you pay for so could somone please tell me if the Studio model has an inferior sound to the more expensive ones? Or is the difference more cosmetic?...

hmm... no, sir, you do not always get what you pay for. Unless the name on the headstock is worth a lot to you, your only criterion should be whether the guitar in your hands gives you satisfaction equal to, or better than, the price demanded by the numbers on the hang-tag.

I am unimpressed by Gibson, so I regard most of them as over-priced. That said, most of the Gibson players I communicate with seem to think that the Studio is a good guitar, simply lacking some of the cosmetic pimping given to it's flashier brethren. If the truth be told, the layer of maple on top of the body is much to thin to do anything but [u]look[/u] good. Absolutely ZERO effect on tone. The pickups may not be quite as good as some others out there, but the fact is that a lot of LP owners install after-market pups in their LPs. Go figure, huh? Anyway, if you are happy with the way your guitar feels in your hands, and it plays the way you think a guitar should play, then it's the right axe for you. And you already own it, so you're in a good place, yes?

The consensus I get from other LP owners is that if you install a pair of Duncan Antiquities humbuckers, and set them well away from the strings (too close to the strings tends to 'choke' the tone), you are likely to have a guitar that sounds every bit as good as the vintage LPs that now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars to collectors that don't actually play them.

Confused? Don't be. LPs of a certain model and a certain age now fetch insane money, based entirely on the fact that people who should know better are willing to pay insane prices for them. Put a pair of Antiquities in your Studio, bathe in the wonderful tones you can produce, and enjoy the fact that you can actually take your guitar out of the house and play it in public without hiring a security company and an armoured truck.