Originally Posted by: ggar1959Ben, I recently spent over $1500 on a Gibson Studio Les Paul, by the time I had the pickups replaced. The guitar was my first Gibson and I gotta tell you, I am very disappointed. My Luthier said the quality of Gibson has gone down....................buyer beware I guess.
So my question is this, is the newer ES-335 a better built guitar then the newer model LPs? And what is chambered vs non-chambered?

ggar1959, I'm sorry to hear you're not happy with your Les Paul, I guess that as with any guitar brand, no guitar is exactly the same and sometimes you can simply be unlucky.

Personally, I tried out a LOT of Les Pauls before I knew what model I wanted: a Les Paul Standard with a thick 50's neck. That was the one that really felt good to me. To be totally honest, there is a pretty big difference between the Les Paul Standards and the Les Paul Studios.

The ES-335 is a completely different guitar, as stymye says. That's like comparing a strat to a Les Paul almost. I never really liked the 335 much, but that's just me :)

Also, as stymye explained, chambered means you take out some of the wood inside the guitar to make it lighter. This is because light mahogany is hard to come by these days (really old Les Pauls are built with lighter mahogany). Chambering is nothing new though, Gibson started doing it in the early 80's. The difference today is that now they have a more refined process of doing it.

You can read all about it here: Gibson Website on Chambering

They even say themselves that no two guitars sound or react the same to the chambering, so it's all about trying out the one you want.