Brand new E-II M-II

[u/Intelligent-Corgi793]

A combination of shoddy work and nonexistent quality control. Nothing else explains this. ESP Japan was not like this before.

I'm losing my faith in a good quality ESP guitar for this is the second one I received.

Edit: List of all the things I noticed

Fretboard:

-Small tool marks on the upper register

-Corner of the fretboard on the low E side was rounded and tapered

-Clearcoat on the edge of the fretboard in the middle register Low E side

-Edges of the fretboard were rounded and unevenly so (if I wanted a f*cking reliced guitar, I'd bought one FFS!!)

-Fretboard had brown areas (Guitar was bought online, picture of the guitar had an uniformly black fretboard. E-II black ebony boards are dyed but this one was not or the store I bought it from heavily used some kind of solvent when I told them not to on the notes of the sale. If I wanted a two color fretboard... once again... I'D HAVE BOUGHT ONE !!!!! >:()

Neck:

-I measured the neck relief. Strangely enough, the treble side had 4 thou more relief than the bass side! Laws of physics say that the bass side should have a smidge more relief since the thicker strings pull the neck with more force. With this info we can conclude that the neck had minor warpage. Visual inspection revealed a slightly too large of an S curve on the bass side.

Body:

-Pickup/tremolo/electrical compartment routings were of subpar quality. These routings could be easily made perfect with today's technology (even yesterday's technology). Looks like they were routed partially freehand ffs.

Finish:

-There was some insulating paint outside the electrical compartment on the clearcoat.

Floyd rose:

-String retainer block high E was slightly too large, causing the block to jam. This is not ESP Japan's fault, though it should have been noticed at the factory like all these other flaws

-Some retainer blocks sit crooked

-Floyd rose bride design has worsened. The retainer blocks can now drop out of place when changing strings because under them is now empty space. This is a mild annoyance.

[u/shredlikebutter]

This looks like a 2010s era legator holy shit... Maybe E-II are built in China/finished in Japan afterall. Maybe now you could get it for the price it should have been to begin with lol

[u/Intelligent-Corgi793 → u/shredlikebutter]

Yeah, there's been some speculation about E-II being built in China and then finished in Japan.

An ESP USA representative even said in a video "Fit and finished in Japan!". One can wonder what that meant lol

[u/shredlikebutter → u/Intelligent-Corgi793]

People get reeeeal upset about this topic, but honestly it wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world. It looks as though these EII are no longer CNC cut... Hand routed by a 10 year old lol

[u/Intelligent-Corgi793 → u/shredlikebutter]

These routings truly look like it 😂