Premier Guitar features affiliate links to help support our content. We may earn a commission on any affiliated purchases.

Will Ray’s Bottom Feeder: 1994 Korean Epiphone Sorrento 

Will Ray’s Bottom Feeder: 1994 Korean Epiphone Sorrento 

With a single horn, vintage-style finish, and double-dog-ear-P-90 array, this 1994 Korea-built Sorrento conjures the vibe of classic Gibson ES-125s.

Dual P-90 pickups and old-school looks in a sunburst finish—what’s not to love?

Every now and then, when I'm surfing eBay, I run across a guitar that just speaks to me with its picture. This 1994 Korean-made Epiphone Sorrento is one of those guitars. From the moment I laid eyes on it, I was smitten by the way it looked. It's kinda like when you first saw your future spouse walking down the street and had love at first sight. Kinda.

What really spoke to me was the vintage-looking sunburst finish with the two black P-90 pickups, instead of the usual chrome ones. The missing pickguard only seemed to enhance its beauty. To me, it resembled an old Gibson ES-125, with its cool sharp cutaway. I knew I had to have it, so I bookmarked it and waited patiently until the end of the auction to put in a snipe bid. I ended up winning it for $405, including shipping.

“When you receive a guitar off eBay with a problem, see if the seller will give you back a partial refund so you can get the problem fixed."

When I received the guitar a week later, it looked even better than in the pictures. It had nice low action and played like butter. But there was a problem. When I plugged it in, the neck pickup seemed to produce an intermittent signal. At first I thought it might be the pickup selector switch, but I eventually traced it to the pickup itself. When I tested it with a VOM meter and tapped it, I came to the conclusion the pickup had a short in the windings and needed to be replaced. Bummer!

So, I contacted the seller, explained the problem, and asked if he would give me a partial refund of $30 so I could replace the defective pickup. He reluctantly agreed, and so I ended up actually getting the guitar for $375. Bottom Feeder Tip #882: When you receive a guitar off eBay with a problem, see if the seller will give you back a partial refund so you can get the problem fixed. If they're smart, they'll realize that it's better to refund a portion of the price rather than have an irate buyer ship the guitar back for a full refund plus shipping. (For the record, I would've kept the guitar even if the seller had refused the partial refund. I wanted it that bad!)


The guitar arrived with a defective neck pickup, so after a little price renegotiation, a replacement was acquired and
this Epiphone was back on its tonal track.

Anyway, I replaced the neck pickup with a black dog-ear Seymour Duncan and all is well now. How does it sound? Awesome! I'm a real P-90 fan and Seymour Duncan, in my opinion, makes the best-sounding ones. Listen to the sound sample and hear for yourself.

So is it a keeper? Probably. I'm realistic about guitars and know that sometimes I need to let one go now and then to help finance others, but this one never fails to excite me when I play it. That's the sign of a keeper!

Adding to the company’s line of premium guitar strapsand accessories, Fairfield Guitar Co. has introduced a new deluxe leather strapdesigned in collaboration with Angela Petrilli.

Read MoreShow less

This legendary vintage rack unit will inspire you to think about effects with a new perspective.

When guitarists think of effects, we usually jump straight to stompboxes—they’re part of the culture! And besides, footswitches have real benefits when your hands are otherwise occupied. But real-time toggling isn’t always important. In the recording studio, where we’re often crafting sounds for each section of a song individually, there’s little reason to avoid rack gear and its possibilities. Enter the iconic Eventide H3000 (and its massive creative potential).

Read MoreShow less

A live editor and browser for customizing Tone Models and presets.

IK Multimedia is pleased to release the TONEX Editor, a free update for TONEX Pedal and TONEX ONE users, available today through the IK Product Manager. This standalone application organizes the hardware library and enables real-time edits to Tone Models and presets with a connected TONEX pedal.

Read MoreShow less

Valerie June’s songs, thanks to her distinctive vocal timbre and phrasing, and the cosmology of her lyrics, are part of her desire to “co-create a beautiful life” with the world at large.

Photo by Travys Owen

The world-traveling cosmic roots rocker calls herself a homebody, but her open-hearted singing and songwriting––in rich display on her new album Owls, Omens, and Oracles––welcomes and embraces inspiration from everything … including the muskrat in her yard.

I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun in an interview as I did speaking with roots-rock artist Valerie June about her new release, Owls, Omens, and Oracles. At the end of our conversation, after going over schedule by about 15 minutes, her publicist curbed us with a gentle reminder. In fairness, maybe we did spend a bit too much time talking about non-musical things, such as Seinfeld, spirituality, and the fauna around her home in Humboldt, Tennessee.

Read MoreShow less