Epiphone Century Masterbilt Zenith Review

I've had this guitar for well over a year now and used it in a number of different contexts and settings.  I really like it but reading other reviews and forums it seems like it has had a very mixed reception.

I suppose many people will struggle to know what this guitar is for.  Excuse an existential question at the beginning of this review, but it is an important one.  This guitar is bit of a niche product that doesn't really have any obvious direct competitors.  However it does have lots of indirect competitors that come close to doing the same thing, and I wonder if anyone really wants that 'thing' any more.

I love playing carved top archtops, there is a mellowness to the sound that is perhaps slightly lacking in the Zenith. Is this a premium carved archtop guitar to rival a 1920s Gibson L5?  No, nor would I expect it to be at this price point, but read some of the disappointed internet forum reviews and you'd be forgiven for thinking that that is what it should be judged against.

Maybe I got lucky but I'd say this guitar gets a lot of the way towards that sound and for a fraction of the price.  It has opened up a lot as it has been played in too. I've travelled quite a lot of miles to try a number of sub £1,000 Chinese built carved top guitars, which many people have raved about in reviews. I've tried to like them, but each time I've been bitterly disappointed by poor finish, necks on new guitars that feel like they need a reset out of the box, atrocious fretwork and less than responsive acoustics.  Maybe I've just been unlucky, but build quality is important and things like the break angle of the strings over the bridge, and fretwork make a huge difference to tone and playability of an acoustic archtop.  Peerless and Eastman guitars I really like, but they are considerably more expensive and often geared more towards straight jazz applications being fitted with floating electric pickups, rather than acoustic pickups.

So where does the Zenith fit in?  I guess the difficulty of answering this questions might be part of the reason that the Century series seems to be struggling to gain traction in the marketplace or at least that's my perception. Happily for me this means I picked up mine way way under list price.  The Zenith sounds like an archtop, I like that sound, acoustically it punches through a mix of other instruments in a way a flat top guitar doesn't and gets lost quite easily. The Zenith seems to respond directly to the amount of energy you put into playing it, allowing a greater dynamic range than a flat top which always seems to have a natural compression once you hit the strings with rather more gusto.  Lead lines seem to project with this guitar in a way they just don't with a flat top.  It has that lovely natural reverb which comes with an archtop guitar.  But having said that a flat top is a much more pleasing rounded tone and overtones when played on its own. There is a richness to the tone which is severely lacking in the Zenith, which has in its place a bark and bite and a more strident mid range. This is not unpleasant but just very different and needs a slightly different technique to exploit and tame.

I love the way the flame maple glows through the deep red finish in certain lights

One of the main technique differences is in how you hold this particular kind of guitar.  An archtop is unusual in that, when it is working well, the back plate and the top work together to make the sound.  When you hold the guitar you need to keep the back plate away from any obstruction.  This not only vastly increases the bass response, but is also creates a 'bellows' effect literally pushing the sound out of the f-holes in the front.  This guitar is severely handicapped if you play it standing up for this reason, s the bass and overall volume drop off significantly.  A flat top guitar's back plate is far less critical in this respect.  With the old school players like Freddie Green you'll observe that archtops are played angled away from your body to allow the backplate full movement. If you develop this technique you'll get far more out of this guitar.  Interestingly with the relatively cheap Chinese carved top and back guitars I mentioned before the carving is quite thick and this is less of an issue.

Another technique difference is that this guitar, like a Macaferri, is no shrinking violet.  Limp wristed playing won't bring out the best in this guitar, you need to get the soundboard moving to get the tone and projection.  I suspect a lot of people pick these up off the shop wall and try to play them like a flat top and are deeply unimpressed by the tone.  However it is best to play this guitar with other instruments to appreciate the way it sits in the mix when my flat top for example would be totally lost with its wider tonal range. In this context the particular tone of the Zenith really begins to make sense. 

I do like acoustic tone of this guitar a lot.  In some ways more than the Deluxe which is a fuller rounder sound.  This one really does cut through a mix of instruments with its more midrange focus.

How does it amplify?  Now here's a thing.  A lot of jazzers for reasons best known to themselves seem to like to buy very expensive carved guitars and then amplify them using lo-fi 1930s magnetic pickup technology (I may just be guilty of this myself!) The worst culprits make big holes in carefuly carved guitars to accommodate these. Others 'float' them on top so as not to spoil the acoustic properties of the guitar which they have paid thousands for, and admittedly some wonderful sounds can be had mixing a magnetic pickup in with them miced sound of a fine instrument. However to make the old pickup technology work many people put much less acoustically pleasing nickel strings on lovely tap tuned acoustic guitars or worse still flatwounds, which just make a beautifully crafted instrument sound rather dead and lifeless. Please don't get me wrong.  I love electric guitars and have lots of them. The electric jazz guitar sound is one of my favourites, but I mainly keep those sounds and pickups for much more feedback free laminate archtops in my collection, which are more robust and cope better with feedback.

Epiphone took a braver and more helpful route and put into these guitars an acoustic pickup.  At this price point it would be wrong to expect this pickup to be the absolute cutting edge of acoustic technology, but it is not at all bad.  However it has really divided the crowd. My main gripe would be that it doesn't do full justice to the 'real' sound of the guitar, instead it sounds much more like any other amplified acoustic guitar.  Not at all unpleasant, but losing some of the bark and bite of the unamplified sound. I would say that about my flat top guitars too, that an under saddle pickup doesn’t get to the heart and soul of the real sound of the guitar.  To get the best results you really have to mix the pickup together with a microphone, in my opinion, or just mic direct, depending on the circumstances.  However it is extremely convenient to be able to plug in and play, when there is no other alternative, and above all to be able to use bronze strings to really get that lively thin top plate moving.

This guitar is not ever going to directly compete with the big money carved archtops which are rightly prized, find a builder who will craft a guitar for you and you are into a totally different league of sound.  However the Zenith is in my opinion a really good honest working guitar.  It sounds good, it looks amazing, you don't have to worry about it like something costing thousands.  Perhaps the most pleasing thing is the fit and finish.  Other brands might offer carved specs for just a bit more money but it breaks my heart to see beautiful materials being wasted with poorly executed workmanship.  The Indonesian factory where the Zenith is made have done a lovely job on finish, fretwork and appearance.  The lacquer is nice and thin, the frets are smooth and level, and I haven't had to adjust the set up at all on mine since buying it.  The inlay work is well done and all the peripherals are solidly attached, no shifting strap pins.  The tuners are great with a huge nod to the 1930s, but on a guitar that stays in tune, is well intonated and doesn't need a neck reset or handling with kid gloves.

I've used this instrument in a huge variety of contexts and been very pleased with it, from ceilidh music, to trad jazz, to pop stuff, once you get the hang of playing it you realise just how versatile it is, and it doesn't get lost in the same way a flat top often does in a more complex mix.

The good news is that because the market doesn't quite know what to make of these beauties you can, like me, pick up one of these at very reasonable prices as retailers try to shift them.  I think they will be one of those guitars people will only really begin to appreciate a bit further down the line, maybe when they are out of production, and when some of their nearest competitors are lying unplayable and unplayed in a corner, while the tops of these well made guitars have just begun to open up and mellow into maturity...