any audiophile guitarists out there?

I have a '77 Strat, '05 PRS 20th Anniversary Standard 24, Turner Compass Rose, Kronbauer MJ and a Boogie Mark IIc.

i will say the Blues Jr can spank out a range of tones...heck, i overdrove the preamp volume (10+) and when the pickups are 8+, oh man i can get the crunch that you hear in mick ronson (david bowie) and uncle pete (townshend).

using dual P-90s by Fralin. limited in harmonics, but not in steel boot to the head crunch action. guess i need a diff guitar for diff tone.

btw, i find myself gravitating away from heavy use of distortion pedals (though i will keep my keeley TubeScreamer)...pedals i've tried all sound distorted in an unnatural way (IOW: Solid State clipping!) vs when i crank the Blues Jr into distortion (tube clipping) which rocks hard in a natural way.

Amp-wise I build my own Metro Amps from kits developed by George Metropoulos. These are high quality clones of Plexi era Marshalls and nothing comes close to these amps. For guitars I have Gibson, Fender, Suhr and Rickenbacker.

"I would suggest either more lessons and/or as I stated above, maybe a different guitar."

Maybe you should study music theory more. It really helped me. (not that i am an expert), but learning some basic theory and understanding scales, keys, time signatures, learning how to structure lead parts over rythems etc, has elevated my playing allot more than just trying to learn another Stone's song. I don't think buying another guitar will help much, as long as you dont have an instrument that is to cheap to tune or has bad frets etc. Just stay away from stuff that has been modded. Take the time to learn guitar set up on your own so you know the ends and outs. Start with a mexican strat or something so you are not fiddling with an expensive guitar.

PS. to the guy that implyed that chineese made epiphones is just as good as gibson and the only diff is the name on the head stock --- LOLOLOLOLOL NO WAY !! I tried an Epi SG, and the neck would flex as you changed chords and if you tuned one string the rest would go out of tune. 100% junk!

6550c - Epiphone is not made in China but in Korea (big difference) in largest instrument factory in the world. Samick has factories in Korea and Indonesia. I've never suggested same quality as Gibson but it is pretty good. If it is enough for Epihone (owned by Gibson) and Gretsch to build guitars there - it should be enough for me. Samick uses quality stuff - Grover tuners, Duncan designed pickups, Wilkinson bridges. As for headstock - I compared Epiphone to Silvertone and not the Gibson. Gibson is 10x more expensive.

Here you'll find user reviews of Samick Les Paul copy (4.5 of 5):

http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/83532