It's hard to believe that you can still buy a solid bodied guitar under for £80, but you can — although some of the horrors you see lurking around this end of the market are about as appealing as being forced to endure a week-long loop tape of Terry Wogan shows!

One possible exception to this rule, however, grabbed our attention at last year's British Music Fair, and we've been intending to review one ever since. It's the RRP £79 Encore EG50 from JHS, and at last we've dug our sample out of its box and given it the once over.

THE DETAILS

By no standards is this Encore the peak of current guitar fashion. If it were, it would be yet another of those monotonous Strat-o-clones which seem to have taken over just about every area of guitar sales today from the £50 Woolies' wonder to the finest of handmade custom jobs. No; flying in the face of trends, the Korean-made Encore is clearly (and surprisingly closely) modelled on Gibson lines, bearing a strong resemblance to a late 1950s Les Paul Junior.

Obviously, a Gibson-style glued neck joint would be quite impossible at this price, so the method used — a four bolt fixing — is quite acceptable, particularly so as our sample seemed sturdy and workmanlike.

To waffle on at any great length about the Encore's finish would be ridiculously pretentious, but it is worth noting that our sample's paintwork and general appearance were of a far higher standard than one has any right to expect for so little money. It would be equally silly to go into any great detail about the woods used in this pleasantly lightweight instrument. The Korean makers have obviously used whatever materials came to hand at a low enough price, and we can't fault them for that. The resulting instrument is easy to manoeuvre, feels quite tough enough, and generally looks rather good. What more can you ask for your £80?

The Encore's hardware is (again, as one might expect) a bit of a mixed bag. The enclosed machines are of a reasonable sort of quality; certainly not the best we've ever found, but neither are they the worst. For a beginner they'll certainly do the job well enough. Likewise, the bridge. This is a replica of the old Gibson 'wraparound' type, where the strings run across a solid bar which has the individual saddles cast into it. In one sense this lumbers you a bit as you can adjust neither individual string height nor string length (intonation). In fact the only movement possible on the bridge is via two end screws which allow you to raise or lower the overall action. While this might seem very limiting, the fact is that a lot of Les Paul Junior owners wouldn't swap theirs for the moon — simply because although, in theory, you can't adjust your intonation to take account of worn strings or odd gauges, it's simple, reliable and gives a great sound. Perhaps more to the point is that beginners won't be tempted to fiddle with their bridge settings, a procedure which far too often results in expensive trips back to the shop to get everything set up correctly again!

The medium/fat fretting on our Encore's 24¾" scale neck was really good — astonishingly so for the price — and this made the guitar both comfortable to play and surprisingly fast. Assuming that our sample was at all typical of the ones in the shops, then it gets a hefty vote from us for the care that has been taken over this vital aspect.

From the pickup angle, a fairly simple looking 'unenclosed' humbucker is is fitted, controlled by two rotary pots; volume and tone.

PLAYING & SOUND

Our Encore's action was a little on the high side for some tastes, but again we're not so sure that this is a negative point. Too many younger players (the likely buyers of this sort of guitar) are encouraged to string their instruments too low and too light, and then wonder why they get string buzzes, rattles, rasps and low power, especially on chords. Any customer who did insist on having a much lower action could easily get this done by his retailer for not a lot of money (our sample would have needed a little extra attention to the nut if it was to have been set way down, but not a drastic amount).

Thus far we've got a nice lightweight guitar, well fretted and sensibly set-up. Where's the catch? Sorry, we just couldn't find one! The neck is on the medium/thin side, fast in a rewardingly chunky way and the sort of thing that any of our review team would have been delighted to have started their playing careers on. Even better is the sound the guitar makes! We pumped ours through as many amps as possible, mainly sticking to the types likely to be used by potential Encore buyers — Custom Sound Cubs, a Carlsbro Hornet, that sort of thing. In every case the EG50 sounded worth more than twice its price, producing a nice, raspy overdrive with plenty of sustain, great for big fat chords and capable of hanging on really well for HM/Blues type solos. Great stuff, and a very far cry indeed from some of the castrated single coil nasties which abound at this price level.

CONCLUSION

This is undoubtedly a far better sounding, nicer playing guitar than we'd have imagined even remotely possible for a mere £79. For a beginner who doesn't insist on a Strat-like shape and single coil pickups, we doubt if it can be beaten at anything like the asking price.

Assuming that all the samples around are as good as ours (it's essential to check setting-up and build quality consistency when buying inexpensive instruments) then we would unhesitatingly vote the Encore EG50 the most outstanding low cost guitar buy today.

RRP £79 inc. VAT

More info from JHS Ltd., (Contact Details).