[hbucker]

I'll muddy the waters by saying that a good amp can make a bad guitar sound good but a good guitar can't make a bad amp sound good.

If you only have enough money to get either a great amp or a great guitar, I'd probably go with the amp. Although you can get a great amp in a PV Classic 30 or 50 for not a lot of money. In any event, I would make sure I got the amp that really got me where I wanted to go and then focus on the guitar.

With that, I can recommend the Elitist too. It won't necessarily save you a lot of money over the Studio. But I have never played a Studio that I prefer to my Elitist. Period. That's not to say Studios are bad guitars. It's just to say that I prefer my Elitist more.

Standard Epiphones are what they are. Golden said it best when he said, "...they're 75% of the Gibson tone at 25% of the price." That's a hard value to beat.

This isn't the right forum for this comment but... Another GREAT budget guitar to consider is the PRS SE line. They are excellent guitars and probably won't run you over $600. But arguably, even the two humbucker models move you away from the LP vibe.

Good luck with your search.