ESP LTD TE-200 SW

I like to start by saying the guitar plays very well but…you can’t take it out if the box and tune like other brands out there…here we go:

The neck finish. There isn’t really a finish. The neck is quite dry. The binding is not really that good, but it’s only noticeable with the guitar face up. If you’re in too minor details, you’ll find them, maybe not what you’re looking for. But for this price...

If the strings were any higher, I would need to involve air traffic control.

The frets are clean, but not polished. They are not sharp, they just need to be filled a pinch more.

The pickups have little wires sticking a little out on the side (right guitar facing up). I’ve only ever seen that in much cheaper guitars., so that’s disappointing.

The sound - It’s very good, very high output pickups, the neck isn’t sticky, the intonation is very good. This alone is worth the annoyances I described.

For this price, I would have hope it came with a little bit better quality and craftsmanship. So if you want as guitar that you can finish yourself and that it sounds good, this is a good buy.

When unboxing, i found a real good looking guitar! It sounded great, though after some months i decided tot swich the pick-ups with the seymour duncan "Jeff Bec" set and ad some shielding tape on the inside, and during the first months i had a broken tone/push/pull knob to be fixed by Thomann. But after all of this and adjusting the neck releave and string height, I have a great, well sounding guitar!

I'm coming to the ESP after playing a cheap epiphone for years and this is lightyears ahead of it. The thinner neck profile is much more usable, the coil tap is brilliant and the overall construction is solid.

Only complaint is the binding is less than perfect. Not horrible by any means, but if you're like me, once you notice it, you won't be able to unsee it.

Despite that, this is a solid guitar. I mainly play metal but some occasional clean tone stuff too and it's perfect. Can recommend.