The Joe Pass is made in Korea by Epiphone. As you may know, the Epiphone brand is owned by Gibson Musical Instruments. As such, Epiphone can freely copy any and all of Gibson's designs. The Joe Pass, however, is not a copy of any Gibson archtop that I have ever seen.  It has a smaller and shallower body (though it is not a thinline by any means) than most archtops which makes it very comfortable to play either standing or sitting.

The Joe Pass sports gold-plated hardware on an all-maple laminate body with a select spruce top. The Joe Pass is a fully hollow archtop; there is no center block like some other archtops. The Joe Pass has 2 humbucking pickups and a floating rosewood bridge with a compensated saddle. Simply put, you set intonation by moving the bridge until the 2 outside strings are spot on.

The first thing I did with my Joe Pass model was to swap out the neck pickup for a Seymour Duncan '59 PAF humbucker for a cost of $60 USD for the pickup and $30 USD for installation from Alpha Music. With the Duncan pickup, I get the jazz tone I crave from my Joe Pass model. The stock neck pickup distorted to easily for my tastes. While that is probably a good thing for R&R and blues, it is undesirable for jazz. I have since replaced the bridge pickup wiht another '59 PAF and it sounds schweeet!

Since I use the Joe Pass model exclusively for jazz, I restrung it with 12's flatwound strings. After some fiddling with the truss rod, I now have decent action with no fret buzzing. I have since moved down to D'addario Chromes in 11's. The lighter gauge strings gave my JP a noticably livlier vibe. While the heavier gauge strings had enough punch, they sounded a little too bassy for my tastes.

The fretboard is rosewood - deep and dark in color. The fret markers, binding (everything is bound including the pickguard), and build quality were much better than I expected from a $700 guitar.

To round out the deal, I opted for a deluxe TKL archtop case where my Joe Pass model spends most of his time when not being played.

As for general tone, my Epi Joe Pass is excellent. Recently, I played with a couple of guys who each owned a brand new Heritage H575 (looks like a Gibson ES-175). While no one can deny the sheer beauty of the H575 and the beautful tones, my Epi Joe Pass sounded as good. While the H575 sounded more acoustic, my Epi JP sounded more electric. In any case, my Epi JP sounded like a George Benson guitar - thick, jazzy, and poppin'. Needless to say, I was very happy, albeit somewhat surprised. It is because of the performance of my Joe Pass in the midst of those Heritage's that I am doing the Epiphone Emperor II, Joe Pass model Appreciation page.

As for playability, the better player of us 3 remarked how much he liked my action and how easy my JP was to play. He decided at that moment to get a pro setup on his new H575 to duplicate the action and playability of my JP.

Are there any downsides to the Emperor II/Joe Pass? Yes, some of which I have personally encountered. Among some of the complaints that I have heard include:

• Problems with intonation indicating possible structural defects in the neck, frets, fretboard or some combination thereof.

  I had this exact problem myself, but not with the the Joe Pass model. (FYI, it was the Epiphone Emperor Regent.)

• Inconsistent quality among Epiphone guitars in general.

  I demo'ed several Joe Pass guitars at 2 different shops on the day I bought mine. All were consistent in build quality, playbility, and tone. One in particular stood out as sounding a little better amplified than the others, but it was a demo model and well-played at that! I opted for a brand new, unplayed one.

• Poor electronics, low quality pickups.

  It is true that I swapped out the pickups on my JP because I wanted better tone for jazz and other genres of music. Pickup selection is a personal choice in the ears of the beholder. If you plan to play jazz, I do suggest that you swap out the neck pickup for something better.

• Lousy tuners.

  Previously I said, "I have not found this to be true. The tuners are quite good, but I don't bend strings on my JP either." Recently, I swapped out the stock tuners on my ES335 copy that I do bend strings on. I liked the new Grovers on that guitar so much that I swapped out the stock tuners on my Epi JP for a set of gold Grover Rotomatics, too. Now, the JP tunes up much nicer. I still don't bend strings on the JP, but having the Grovers on it has helped tuning up. The needle on my electronic tuner used to jump around on some strings on my JP, but not anymore. Tuning is much more stable with the Grovers. At $40 USD, I highly recommend the Grover Rotomatics as replacements for the Epi JP's stock tuners.

• Cheap gold-plating.

  This may be true as I had a problem with premature wearing of gold-plated parts. I suggest that you do nothing more than wipe off the gold with a dry, soft cloth. Refrain from rubbing. Most any guitar with gold-plated parts will have problems if you rub vigorously. FYI, Epiphone replaced all gold-plated parts under warranty.

• Poor support from Gibson for Epiphone guitars.

  Sorry, this could not be any further from the truth as far as I am concerned. They bent over backwards to satisfy a problem I had with premature wearing of gold parts, sending me new ones as replacements.