ESP LTD EC-256 FM LD

Bought this 5 months ago to use next to my ESP FX Standard for daily practice.

It arrived playable, action was set fairly high but no problem to adjust to lower action. The finish was not prefect, there was some poly finish on the fretboard just passed the binding but this was easily fixed with some high grid sandpaper. Other than that the finish was fine.

Obviously it is not at the same level as my ESP FX Standard as it is less then a 4th of the price but so far i have almost only used the EC-256 in the past 5 months, which says alot. I love the feel of it, i like the sound of the pickups and it looks great. It has left me wanting another EC or Les Paul shaped guitar.

I would seriously recommend this as a first guitar.

It arrived in really sturdy double box and it was fast for free shipping. Guitar was little bit out of tune and it took 5 minutes to tune and setup. Neck pickup was really low in the body.

Guitar neck is really comfortable and I really like thin U shape and 24.75" scale with 22XJ frets from ESP. I really like stock pickups and they sound pretty good in high gain setting on my Peavey and guitar has really good sustain. Split function on tone knob works really well and I would dare to say that it works and sound better than on my Schecter hellraiser that has emg 89 and 81. Oh yeah and frets were really nicely done and smooth and I was surprised by that because I tried more expensive guitars in store that had really bad fret work and rough fret edges.

Guitar had some minor flaws in finish for example few brown dots under clear coat finish, neck binding seems scraped on few frets on botom side (I guess during fret end smoothening) and headstock side has tiny whiteish line under clear coat. Strings were really old and fingerboard was super dusty but that is an easy fix.

All in all it is really nice guitar for the money, minus cosmetic flaws. Full mahogony body has nice weight to it but it is not heavy, and guitar balance is superb because gitare doesn't have nose dive, it just stays in position I like. It is a good platform for future upgrades like locking tuners, better nut and maybe JB/59 combo.