Anyone have experience with Eastman guitars?

  • I tried some Eastman solid bodies and semi-hollow bodies at a local shop, yesterday, and was seriously impressed. I'm not a big fan of the relic'd look, but every one of the relic'd ones I played sounded great. There were also two Les Paul style ones with nitro finishes, that weren't relic'd. One looked and sounded very similar to my 2016 Gibson Les Paul Traditional. It was one of the best guitars I've heard, and I definitely would have bought it if I didn't have the Gibson. There was another one in gold burst, which was in the Top 5 nicest looking I've ever seen. It had the same pickups as other one, but sounded thinner and brighter, so I didn't get along with the sound, but it played really well. If it sounded like the other ones, I would have bought it.


    I also tried three semi-hollow body guitars, and may be going back for one, next week. I'm trying to make less impulse purchases, so I wanted to at least think about it, over the weekend.


    Does anyone here have any experience with Eastman electrics? They seem to be getting pretty good reviews online. Other than a tiny dot, smaller than a pinhead, in the binding on the back of one of neck of one of the guitars, I didn't see or feel anything wrong with the Eastmans, yesterday (other than the relic'd one, which look and more importantly feel completely wrong to me). These guitars seem like they had a very high level of skill put into building them, and very tight quality control (unlike the Gibsons I have. I still love them, but I shouldn't have to put hundreds of dollars into a guitar I liked the sound of for it to play the way I like).


    I'm primarily interested in how these semi-hollows hold up over time, if anyone has one.

  • Imo they beat the competition by a mile when compared within same price ranges.
    Also, on many occasions where id visit a shop which has about 100 archtops..from new to vintage....from 1k to 40k priceranges....id end up with an eastman in the top 3, disregarding any pricetags.


    I got close to buying the pisano...but choose for a Benedetto.
    I recently got me a used el rey...very nice guitar!

  • Went back and tried the t486 today. I really like the sound and looks of it. I did find a few finish blemishes, but you'll have that on a handcrafted instrument. I still think it had better QC than either of my Gibsons.


    The one thing that kept me from buying it was there was a buzzing on the low E string, that adjusting the truss rod and bridge reasonably could not get rid of. You couldn't hear it, plugged in, but the vibrations were really irritating (I guess that's part of what I liked about this guitar. It really resonates well). A few of the frets were high, and I think that was what was buzzing. The shop owner is going to try to fix it, and I'm going to check back.


    There is one other shop I want to check out, but I don't think I'm going to like anything as much as the Eastmans, in that price range. I really don't want to spend more than a grand, and the used market here sucks.


    Thanks for the information, everyone.