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The Masterbilt AJ-500M: try it and you'll want it!

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• Manufacturer's Description

Let's play a game of word association. What's the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the name Epiphone?

We're not mind readers, you understand, but we'll wager a bet that you just got a nice image of a reasonably priced Les Paul floating about in your skull.

Epiphone have done such a sterling job with their electric guitar range that it's easy to forget these guys make some decent acoustics, too.

Well, we reckon their new AJ-500M VS acoustic could be the guitar to change that. Straight from the box this guitar gave us a real wake up call, with regards to the great shape Epiphone's acoustic range is in these days.

Overview

The AJ-500M VS is part of the Masterbilt series. By the way, before our inbox is swamped with emails from eagle-eyed typo spotters, the word Masterbilt is supposed to be spelled that way. That's what Epiphone reckon, anyway. Can we move on now?

Whether or not this guitar turns out to be any good, you have to admit it's pretty. The round-shouldered body looks classy with that vintage sunburst finish.

The dead tree bits of the AJ-500M VS are all-solid. You can get all-solid wood guitars for half the price of this Epiphone these days, but it always delights our eyeballs when we scan the specification sheet and see that we're getting real chunks of lumber.

What's so great about solid woods anyway, we hear you ask? Many affordable acoustic guitars are made from sheets of wood laminated together with glue.

It does the job, after a fashion. Solid wood is different: it's sliced from the tree and turned into parts for the guitar and the only glue used is to stick the parts together.

Solid wood fl exes and vibrates and well, it just sounds alive. It also allows the tone of the guitar to mature with age, producing a sound that'll put a tilt in your kilt for years to come.

There's a term used in the guitar industry to describe some budget instruments made in the Far East. Insiders call these instruments 'G.L.O's' or 'guitar-like objects.'

Basically, this is a mass-produced product that looks like a guitar, produces a fairly decent tone but is not expected to last a lifetime, and in some cases not even until the next General Election.

And crucially, it won't age well. These items will service the needs of the beginner, but they're a stopgap until something better can be afforded.

The thing is, the price gap between G.L.O's and quality guitars, like this Epiphone, used to be wider than the Grand Canyon – we're talking a £1,000 plus.

These days, it's just a few hundred pounds. OK, that's still a lot of money, but it does mean the dedicated acoustic guitarist has a real chance of getting their hands on something great. Right, let's get back to talking about wood.