- Extremely affordable, well-built beginner guitar
- Bare bones, SG experience
- Discontinued, only available on the used market
Hello there and welcome back to another honest and long-term review of an excellent SG model electric guitar by Epiphone SG Special.
Table of Contents
About Epiphone
For those who have never heard of Epiphone, here’s a quick introduction! Epiphone is a well-known guitar manufacturing company that traces its origins back to the late 19th century. The company was established in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now Izmir, Turkey – interestingly, this is my hometown! :)). Initially, Epiphone focused on making traditional Greek instruments, but it eventually shifted its focus to guitars. In the early 20th century, the company moved to the United States and gained a reputation for producing high-quality, affordable guitars. Epiphone guitars became popular among musicians for their craftsmanship and sound. Over the years, Epiphone has manufactured a wide range of guitar models, including archtops, solid bodies, and semi-hollow bodies.
One notable aspect of Epiphone‘s history is its association with Gibson, another prominent guitar manufacturer. Gibson acquired Epiphone in 1957, and since then, Epiphone has operated as a subsidiary of Gibson. This collaboration has allowed Epiphone to benefit from Gibson’s expertise and technology while maintaining its distinct identity. 
Epiphone guitars are widely used by musicians across various genres, and the brand is known for offering instruments that provide good value for their price. The company continues to produce a diverse range of guitars, catering to the needs of both beginners and experienced players. Epiphone guitars are recognised for their versatility, making them a popular choice in the music industry. Epiphone was always one of my favourite brands while I was working in the musical instruments industry. Even their most affordable guitars would sound and play great, almost right out of the box.
Check out my Epiphone guitar reviews
With the extremely high level of competition in the musical instrument industry, guitar brands have been putting so much effort into improving the quality of entry- and mid-segmented guitars. Recently, Epiphone has also put a lot of effort into making really cool guitars under their “Inspired by Gibson” series. This means that the Epiphone company (owned by Gibson) releases Les Pauls and SGs, which are almost exact replicas of the original legendary models with some step-back features. 
Epiphone SG Special
This model, just like its Les Paul equivalent, Epiphone Les Paul Special II, is aimed at beginner or intermediate guitar players. And again, just like Les Paul Special II is one of the most reasonably priced guitars that money can buy! During my service in the musical instruments industry, I witnessed that Epiphone SG Special has always been a top-selling model among its competitor models, even though SG body guitars are less likely preferred compared to Les Paul body models.
As I have mentioned once in my “Epiphone G-400 Pro Ebony Electric Guitar Real SG Experience” review, I really like the structure and design of SG guitars, especially in terms of being extremely comfortable playing in the upper register. To be honest, I have never come across any other guitar design that felt this comfortable with upper register noodling.
However, there is another thing to mention about SG-style guitars: this body design shifts the centre of gravity, and it tends to be unbalanced. But everyone knows SGs have a unique timbre and character, so some people can bear this tiny drawback! 🙂 During my service in the musical instruments industry, I would have a chance to play at least 20 Epiphone SG Special (VE) model electric guitars in a year and never experienced a structural problem. And if you have difficulties understanding why I am able to claim such facts, please have a look at my solid reasons why you should trust me! 
Before we get into more details about this beautiful instrument, let’s hear it in action! This first video features a concept that we came up with back in the day! It was called “Pişti” in Turkish, which is kind of a slang word derived from a card name meaning when you witness two identical things or events happening at the same time. Imagine how many SG Specials we used to sell that most days had 2 or more on the same day! 🙂
This video was recorded with, obviously, 2 Epiphone SG Specials: me (lead player) going straight into the Fender Pro Junior valve amp, and my colleague into the Marshall AVT50 amp + an old Boss SD2; all sounds were captured with Rode VideoMic Pro.
Test Room Video (no talking)
As you can see, they sound great out of the box and are pretty playable guitars. Note that these guitars were Epiphone SG Specials, and they have a kill pot on the tone pot, which is an extra feature. At the moment, I strongly believe it’s very difficult to find Epiphone SG Specials; instead, they are pushing Epiphone SG Special models, which are almost equivalent to this model. If you are one of my regular visitors, you are probably aware of my having mentioned this many times. After CITES regulations hit guitar manufacturers, they have come up with similar or almost identical alternative woods to rosewood. 
So you won’t have the kill pot with Epiphone SG Special VE models; on top of that, VE versions are not gloss-finished guitars but satin or worn, as they call it. At the moment, you can still find the Epiphone SG Special model on Epiphone’s official website; however, I have been watching some online music shops closely and noticed this model has been disappearing slowly. To be honest, I don’t really know what kind of strategy Epiphone has, but I have noticed this with many guitar manufacturers: they have come up with new models that have slightly different specs to replace the initial pre-CITES models.
Sound Demo (no talking)
Let’s continue with the second video of the Epiphone SG Special! This time it was recorded with a Marshall JVM205C valve amp + Shure SM57 microphone to present the sounds this instrument can produce with an unbiased approach.
If you listen to the sounds with different gain settings on different channels in the above video, you will notice that it still has a vintage vibe to it even on high-gain channels. This is not a bad thing actually, but beware that this guitar is not made for super hi-gain, contemporary metal music; rather, it is an authentic instrument that aims to produce SG sounds. 
Tech Specs
| Epiphone SG Special | Tech Specs |
|---|---|
| Body | Poplar with Mahogany Veneer* / Mahogany |
| Construction | Bolt-On |
| Neck | Okoume*, 1960's Slim Taper D Profile |
| Scale | 628.65mm |
| Fingerboard | Rosewood or Okoume* |
| Pickups | Epiphone 650R and 700T |
| Controls | 3-way Pickup Selector, 1 Tone and 1 Volume Pots, Kill Pot* |
| Radius | 304.48mm |
| Frets | 22, Medium Jumbo |
| Bridge | LockTone Tune-O-Matic |
| Nut Width | 42.86mm |
| Tuners | Premium 14:1 Ratio |
As you can see from the tech specs above, I have put * marks next to the components that might differ depending on which stock you will be buying this model from. The ones you have listened to here in this review are supposed to* be made of mahogany body, neck and rosewood board. Well, it’s not really possible to know exactly what kind of wood they use.
As mentioned above, you won’t be able to find Epiphone SG Special easily. I have done my research and have not been able to find them in stock in the online shops, both music stores and general e-commerce stores. So this reinforces my theory that SG Special has been replaced by SG Special VE, which is more or less the same guitar. Do I still recommend it? Yes, why not? At this price range, there are no other alternative SG models to Epiphone SG Special VE. During over 2 years of my real field experience, I have played dozens of these guitars, and there were no problematic ones that arrived in our store.
I would say 9.5 out of 10 was in excellent condition and almost ready to ship without even touching. But remember, a good setup and a new set of strings will always make a huge difference, even for an expensive instrument too! If you have a limited budget and you still want an SG, Epiphone SG Special VE is probably the best option you will have! However, if you are a bit more flexible with your budget, I would go for Epiphone G-400 Pro since it’s better quality and built with more sonic options.
Originally, SGs and LPs come with covered pickups, and I believe it changes the sound a lot! Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better, but to capture the vintage vibe, covered pickups are a better option for you.
If you want to find out how covered vs uncovered pickups sound like, I highly recommend you to read my “Covered vs Uncovered Humbuckers A/B Comparison Test” article and listen to the sound samples.
Pricing & Availability
As you may have noticed, Epiphone SG Special model guitars are no longer in production. There are still SG Specials featuring P90 pickups, but these are not the subject of this article. Also, there are many iterations of this series, and I must stress that I’m only talking about the ones made from 2013 to 2016. Chances are you can still grab one of these in the used market.
Check out the Epiphone SG Special series on Reverb here
I hope this has been a helpful and honest review as promised! Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
