Epiphone Les Paul Junior Review: Love at Second Sight?

The Epiphone Les Paul Junior, and indeed the whole Inspired By Gibson Epiphone line-up looks impressive on paper. But does it live up to the hype?

I’m going to split this review into two parts. Part one is my first impressions of the Epiphone Les Paul Junior back in 2020 when I picked it up in a local guitar store and part two is my experience of actually owning a 2022 model Epiphone Les Paul Junior.

Part One – 2020 Guitar Shop Review.

Epiphone Les Paul Junior Specs.

The Epiphone Les Paul Junior was the guitar I was waiting for. A stripped-down tone machine with a mahogany body, CTS pots, graph tech nut, a single P90 Probucker, and a one-piece wrap-around bridge. Alas, the Junior doesn’t feature the Grover machines of others in the line-up, but on specs alone, the Les Paul Junior is a massive step up from the last model, which was firmly rooted in the bolt-on neck, budget category.

Besides, I don’t really use a neck pickup most of the time anyway.

Specs in full @ https://www.epiphone.com/Guitar/EPI8U8980/Les-Paul-Junior/Tobacco-Burst

Body
Body Shape Les Paul Junior
Body Material Mahogany
Finish Vintage Tobacco Burst

Neck
Material Mahogany
Profile Vintage 50s
Scale Length 24.75″ / 628.65mm

Fingerboard
Material Indian Laurel
Fingerboard Radius 12″
Number Of Frets 22
Frets Medium Jumbo
Nut Material Graph Tech®
Nut Width 1.69″ / 43mm
Inlays Dot
Joint Glued in-set

Hardware
Finish Nickel
Tuner Plating Nickel
Bridge Lightning Bar Wrap Around
Tuning Machines Epiphone Deluxe Vintage
TrussRod Yes
Truss Rod Cover “Bell Shaped”; 2-layer (Black/White); Blank
Control Knobs Black Top Hats
Strap Buttons 2

Electronics
Bridge Pickup P-90 PRO™ Dogear
Controls Master Volume, Master Tone, CTS

First Impressions

“It’s got a huge neck!” said the sales assistant as he passed it over. They hadn’t bothered to display the guitar, keeping it in stock as the higher-end Les Pauls took pride of place, and I can sort of see why…

I know the whole point of a Les Paul Junior is to be basic and no-frills, and in that regard, it certainly doesn’t disappoint. But that neck? Don’t get me wrong I’m used to 50’s necks and played one for 10 years on my Gibson Les Paul Studio, but this is second only to the stupidly unwieldy Brian Red Special copy I once owned and dominates the whole playing experience. A high(ish) action doesn’t help matters, but once I got over that I began to inspect the guitar in detail.

What I do love however is the newly designed headstocks, harking back to Epiphone’s heyday. Absolutely gorgeous!

Build Quality

An obvious area where costs have been cut, unfortunately. Sure, the specs and hardware look great on paper, but this is just too rudimentary and sloppy, even for a £320 Epiphone Les Paul Junior. I was sat amongst a wall of Fenders and it must be said even the low-end Squiers were leagues ahead of this for fit and finish. The Epiphone Les Paul Junior is a bit of a mess, with the finished being clagged on, giving the impression it’d been put together in someone’s garden shed, not a modern facility in the far-east.

The fretwork looks OK but nothing special, but high actions are always a bad sign and could hide potential issues with high frets, etc. I would at least want the action lowest to inspect it fully.

In short. Disappointing considering my last Epiphone purchase, the unbelievable Epiphone ES-335 PRO.

How does the Epiphone Les Paul Junior play?

In a word: Badly. Yes, I know the 50s neck is a preference thing and something you can get used to. Yes, I know guitars never come with optimal action and setup out of the box in a guitar store. But still, what we have here is a massive neck and a high action, and that’s just not going to play well. It’s cumbersome and tiring. As a Telecaster convert, I had a few close-to-hand, and switching to even a lower-end model reminded me of how a decent guitar should play.

The body also feels uncomfortably small for me too, it just doesn’t sit/hang or look right somehow.

Sounds

Although it has at least some of that classic Les Paul bark, it’s a the expense of definition. I was expecting to have variation and indeed fun out of the well-documented hidden flexibility of a single p90 + one tone/volume combination. But was left underwhelmed. It just doesn’t surprise you. Rolling back the volume gives you less volume, no sign of a hidden acoustic-like tone. Rolling back the tone gives you less clarity, not more beef. It’s just too predictable and dull.

By this point, I was beginning to look wantingly at the Fender Player Telecasters and in particular a gorgeous butterscotch Squier Classic Vibe Esquire. Back in Tele-land, I had all the grunt of the Les Paul but with all the zing and all the useful (and fun) variations in between.

In this company, I’m afraid it can’t hold its own.

But at least it’s affordable eh?

Is the Epiphone Les Paul Junior Value for money?

When you put the whole package together, and look at the competition from Fender, in particular, the Les Paul Junior comes out poorly. In fairness, with a setup, it could play a lot better (depending on those frets), but compared against a comparatively (or lower) priced Telecaster it falls way short. Apples and oranges you could say, but in this test, the Tele delivers everything the Junior can and more.

Looking at models further up the Epiphone range, I would wager the Standards, etc would fare much better for only an extra £100 outlay, however, looking at some YouTube videos, it appears quality control issues inflict the whole range.

The bottom line is you could pick up a Fender/Squier tomorrow and gig it, and that’s just not true of the Epiphone which will at least take a bit of work and practice.

Conclusion

I was hoping the Epiphone Les Paul Junior would provide me with giggable simplicity and at least a ballpark Gibson tone. Unfortunately, the playability and (probably by extension) lacklustre overall experience in general, negates almost all of the positives in this classic design.

The saddest thing is, again, unlike other Gibsons / Epiphones I’ve owned, there doesn’t seem to be any effort or love involved in its construction, just some (admitted higher-specced) parts thrown together. And that’s a real shame.

Part 2: Owning the 2022 Epiphone Les Paul Junior.

Having now owned the Epiphone Les Paul and used it in anger, do I stand by what I said?

Why did I give it a second chance?

The reason I purchased this guitar is my frustration with my Strat. It wasn’t pushing through the mix, it was too fiddly, too complicated and I wanted something to focus my mind on learning material in a band context. I wanted something simple, sturdy, and affordable, so despite my initial reservations, I decided to give the Epiphone Les Paul Junior another go.

Second first impressions.

In my original review, the big neck was an immediate minus point. Now? I think it feels very Gibson-like, which is certainly a good thing. In fact, for some reason, the whole package feels closer to Gibson than the usual Epiphone fare.

Is the build quality really that bad?

In a word, no. I was wrong again. This is a flawlessly finished instrument for the money and my fears of uneven fret were unfounded as I lowered the action down to a buzz-free .1.2mm at the 12th fret. Truth be told the frets are a little scratchy, but nothing that a once-over with steel wool or micromesh wouldn’t sort. It’s every bit as good as my old Epiphone ES-335 PRO now.

Shout out to the stable and refined-looking Epiphone deluxe tuners too. Rock-solid tuning on this guitar!

Epiphone Les Paul Junior playability

I was probably right about this one. Even with the action way down low, I felt the Epiphone Les Paul Junior to be a little stiff. Certainly stiffer than my Fender Player Stratocaster. My theory behind this is the one-piece bridge. I think the break angle around the back of it is too tight by design vs the more gradual break angle over the Strat’s saddles. Whatever the reason, it just doesn’t play as well as a Strat. or previous Les Pauls I’ve owned for that matter (which had the stop tail).

Check out my comparison with a Strat here:

Second opinion on the sounds of an Epiphone Les Paul Junior.

I hastily wrote it off at first. But this guitar can certainly; sound like a Les Paul… Because it is a Les Paul! As demonstrated in the above video, it really can’t do clean, but with overdrive, it can hang with the very best.

But P90’s will always be a double-edged sword. Yes, you can cover a lot of sonic ground with them, and they are chameleon-like in their versatility, but they are also a compromise. You can clean up but never get near Strat clean. You can make them sing but not quite as much as a humbucker and without the benefit of bucking the hum.

The fabled Les Paul Junior’s tone and volume manipulation have always felt like a gimmick to me. You can roll the volume and tone back on any guitar, no matter how many pickups it has, and get the same results. There really is nothing unique to see here.

Overall, it’s a great-sounding overdriven guitar, which by design lacks versatility.

Check out my full review here:

Is the Epiphone Les Paul Junior still good value for money?

For a quarter of the price, this is very close to the Gibson for feel, but there are a few necessary concessions: The top and back veneer, the 3-piece neck, the laurel fingerboard, and the poly finish. But other than that, it’s pretty much identical bar the superior GraphTech nut, the plug-in pickup connector, the shallower neck angle, and of course, the (now pearloid) name on the headtock.

This is a seriously, well put together, well specced, nice playing and great sounding guitar for just over £300.

I was wrong. I’d pick this over a Squier any day. Just don’t expect it to sound like a Strat clean.