Special I vs. Special II for a Budget Guitar

[Ecoaster]

I'm looking to get a decent but inexpensive les paul style guitar with humbuckers. For the Black Friday deals, Guitar Center is selling the Epi Special I for $89, and SamAsh has the Special II for $120.

Looks like the Special I has the simple wrap-around bridge and the II has the TuneOMatic bridge. Other than that plus the colors and finish, are there any other real differences between these two? Which one would you guys go with?

Also, I've seen a Special II "Plus Top"... is that the same guitar with another set of different colors / finishes?

Thanks!

 

[dmvksv]

I have both a Special I and a Special Il, only my Special I is the P90 version, which I highly recommend. As far as the Special II it's a decent guitar, and a good platform for modding. The tuners aren't the greatest but they are acceptable,and the humbuckers aren' t the best, they are on the muddy side.I assume they use the same humbuckers in the Special 1 model. The biggest difference is the Special 1 has a Satin finish, not real flashy but nicely done ( as opposed to the gloss on the Special ll), and is considerably lighter, as well as the differences in the bridges you've mentioned. The Special Il feels more like a Led Paul, the Special l is more comfortable to play.I've changed the tuners on both, and put a set of GFS Fat Pats in the Special ll, sounds fantastic now.. As far as a recommendation, unless you are set on a humbucker eqquiped model, I would look for a Special l with p90's. You can usually find them on sale in the $90 range and they sell for about $129 regular price. Pickups are unbelievable for a cheap guitar, and the light weight and satin neck make it a joy to play. Do a forum search and you'll find a lot of rave reviews about what a gem this guitar is. Oh, and the Plus top Special ll is the same guitar with a nicer flamed top, only difference is cosmetic.Either model you chose, they are good quality guitars for the price.Hope this helps some.

 

[Ecoaster]

Thanks for the all the comments... So here's the thing, I actually HAVE one of those Special I-P90's. A friend borrowed it for now, but I'll get it back. My thinking was that I've never had a humbucker guitar (my other / main guitar is a single-coil strat type) and thought that would be interesting to play around with for more high gain / distortion sounds. Does this line of thinking actually make any sense?

 

[johnnymg]

I'm looking to get a decent but inexpensive les paul style guitar with humbuckers. For the Black Friday deals, Guitar Center is selling the Epi Special I for $89, and SamAsh has the Special II for $120.

Looks like the Special I has the simple wrap-around bridge and the II has the TuneOMatic bridge. Other than that plus the colors and finish, are there any other real differences between these two? Which one would you guys go with?

Also, I've seen a Special II "Plus Top"... is that the same guitar with another set of different colors / finishes?

Thanks!

At those prices the Special II is probably the better bet.

FWIW, I bought (and returned) a Special I. The neck/frets were absolutely horrid on the sample I got. The upside was the P90's sounded pretty darn good.

 

[sci]

I have Special II and play almost exclusively high-gain. There is always a critic against the tuners of this guitar, but mine doesn't go out of tune at all, except short after replacing the strings, which I think is normal. What I don't like is that the output of the neck pickup is so fat and strong, that the high-gain starts sound very muddy. On a clear sound the guitar sounds brilliant, but on high gain I am using just the bridge pickup. Actually I didn't found any of the critics to the guitar with mine - it has good tuners, the neck has great action, the sound is very nice and it is made entirely of solid wood. I assume during the decades of production of the model, the build quality was changing and not anything said in the reviews is applicable for today's production. Special I seems to be a nice guitar too, I didn't considered it for me because of the P90 (I have a SSS guitar and it is definitely not my thing. Of course I can be wrong, not every SC is P90).

 

[pnuggett]

At those prices the Special II is probably the better bet.

FWIW, I bought (and returned) a Special I. The neck/frets were absolutely horrid on the sample I got. The upside was the P90's sounded pretty darn good.

I also returned a Special I P90 that had a bad neck pocket and some other small issues. I found one that is really nice and love it. Replaced the crap tuners with Gotoh. The P 90's are great.

 

[ScottMarlowe]

Just picked up a Special I w / humbuckers on sale for $89.99. They have the P-90 for that as well online at guitardenter. The fret ends have the same problem my Gibson '70s Tribute SG. The sides of the frets going down to the fretboard are sharp. Five minutes with a fret end file and that'll be fixed. But first I'm gonna check it for level frets and level crown and polish them.

The Special I is a great guitar to learn basic tech work on like replacing nuts or pickups or levelling the frets etc.

The frets are ROUGH, the setup is meh at best, and I wouldn't be surprised if the nut is too high etc. But if you know mostly what you're doing, they're great starter guitars. And honestly I've seen worse for 2 or 3 times the money they go for.

Special I w/humbucker $89.99
Special I w/P-90s $89.99

Now where's that fret file?

 

[C_Becker]

The LP Special II I had had a decent to good fret job. Neck, playability everything quite good.

On the con site the tuners were crap, so was the bridge and the jack, the bridge studs fell out because the holes were too big and the pickups were muddy.

Bought it in the starter pack almost 2 years ago for 160€ IIRC. Would I buy it again ? Hell no, I'd save up for something better. In that price region its really a crap shoot to get a decent one.

I threw mine in the trash last week after having it laying around in the rehearsal room as a backup for half a year. After replacing the tuners, the pups and fixing what I could, it was still just a "starter pack" guitar. Waste of money and time.

 

[dspelman]

Honestly, if I'm buying at that price, I'd hit up Rondo Music and see what they've got for similar money.

The Epi Specials are *always* around, always on sale around the various holidays and doorbuster sale days. I think the best answer was right above this post, "Hell no, I'd save up for something better."

On the other hand, with El Nino bearing down on us, I might be thinking, "What the hell, I can always use it as an emergency canoe paddle."

 

[Ecoaster]

I ended up grabbing a Special II for under $120. I restrung it and adjusted the neck. Action and intonation are pretty good out of the box. I played it for a few hours and it stayed in tune just fine once the strings were stretched.

I don't have any illusions about what the guitar is or isn't, but I'm happy with it so far... I find it plays better than the Special I P90, although I'm sure overall they're not actually very different.

 

[rem22]

Oi believe the most important thing is the set up. An average guitar perfectly set up is always better to me, and far more playable than a good one poorly set-up.
So unless you really know how to do a great setup, I would consider the one where you can afford a set up.
Note that the lp100 used is also a good deal, especially if you buy it from someone who already set it up. I had one and I wish I had kept it.

 

[Dolebludger]

If I'm not mistaken, both these "special" lines have grover-type tuners. This means there are little screws on the ends on the tuners. It they are losing tuning while playing, tightening these little screws often solves the problem.

I see some of you have these guitars. Some had a bad fret and nut job and some had a good fret and nut job. This is unfortunately typical of most Epis to my experience. If you are not into fixing these things yourself (I don't do fret levels), and you have to order the guitar, make sure you will have a good return policy with the seller paying return shipping. Good luthiers and techs usually charge in the $100 to $200 range to correct a bad fret job, and there goes the "economy" of these guitars.

 

[Ishmann]

If I'm not mistaken, both these "special" lines have grover-type tuners. This means there are little screws on the ends on the tuners. It they are losing tuning while playing, tightening these little screws often solves the problem.

I see some of you have these guitars. Some had a bad fret and nut job and some had a good fret and nut job. This is unfortunately typical of most Epis to my experience. If you are not into fixing these things yourself (I don't do fret levels), and you have to order the guitar, make sure you will have a good return policy with the seller paying return shipping. Good luthiers and techs usually charge in the $100 to $200 range to correct a bad fret job, and there goes the "economy" of these guitars.

I tightened all of the screws in the end of my tuners and have had zero problems with my Special II staying in tune.

As for the pickups sounding muddy, I adjusted the height of them and they sounded much better.

If I had one critism of the Special II it is that the tone pot doesn't do a whole lot. I have read on this forum that some have tried different wiring, so I may try that at some point.

 

[rem22]

I tightened all of the screws in the end of my tuners and have had zero problems with my Special II staying in tune.

As for the pickups sounding muddy, I adjusted the height of them and they sounded much better.

If I had one critism of the Special II it is that the tone pot doesn't do a whole lot. I have read on this forum that s;ome have tried different wiring, so I may try that at some point.

yeah your wiring and pots are bad....some people never play with the knobs, it this case I'm not sure it is that important. But I like to clean my tone with rolling off my knobs.

On the LP100 I had, the tuners were reliable, and the guitar did not have tunning issue. The low ratio of the tuner however made the tuning more complicated than 18:1 tuners for example.

 

[sci]

As for the pickups sounding muddy, I adjusted the height of them and they sounded much better.

I was playing a lot with the hight of the pickups. Could you share your setup (distance to the strings at bass and treble side)?

 

[ScottMarlowe]

Just picked up the Special I w/humbuckers for $89 at GC. As someone who DOES do his own fret jobs etc, I can say the frets aren't terribly uneven. My fretrocker barely barely rocks on a few frets, nothing major. The frets are a little bit gritty when bending but that seems to mostly go away after 30 minutes of playing so far.

Pickups sound pretty good to me.

The biggest failing on these guitars is that the tuners wear out over time. I've seen a few 5 to 10 year old epis with these tuners and usually one or two is rather "grindy". For now they seem OK.

Mine definitely needed a bit of setup, which is mostly just lowering the bridge. Action and playability are pretty good now.

I've honestly spent more and gotten less before.

 

[thecaptain115]

Just picked up the Special I w/humbuckers for $89 at GC. As someone who DOES do his own fret jobs etc, I can say the frets aren't terribly uneven. My fretrocker barely barely rocks on a few frets, nothing major. The frets are a little bit gritty when bending but that seems to mostly go away after 30 minutes of playing so far.

Pickups sound pretty good to me.

The biggest failing on these guitars is that the tuners wear out over time. I've seen a few 5 to 10 year old epis with these tuners and usually one or two is rather "grindy". For now they seem OK.

Mine definitely needed a bit of setup, which is mostly just lowering the bridge. Action and playability are pretty good now.

I've honestly spent more and gotten less before.

I picked one up yesterday as well. My bridge won't screw all the way down, there are still 3-4 threads left before it "bottoms out". Did you experience this as well?

 

[ScottMarlowe]

I picked one up yesterday as well. My bridge won't screw all the way down, there are still 3-4 threads left before it "bottoms out". Did you experience this as well?

That's usually either something in the threads (saw dust etc) or the stud spacing isn't right and the threads are jamming part way down. If it's the latter take it back and get another.

 

[Ishmann]

I was playing a lot with the hight of the pickups. Could you share your setup (distance to the strings at bass and treble side)?

Here they are. Hopefully they will work for you. These are measured from the top of the pickup to the bottom of the string.

Neck: base 5mm, treble 7mm

Bridge: base 4mm, treble 5mm

 

[sci]

Thank you. Actually not so far from my settings (my bridge pickup is just higher than yours with 2mm). Is the distance measured with the string pressed on the last fret or on released string?