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Lots of great kit out there at sensible prices. I guess it boils down to how important the sound is to you (and of course what your budget is). Being a recidivistic old fart, I would politely suggest that nothing beats a good valve amp for sound; no amount of electronic toys quite manages to recreate that valve magic IMHO. The downside is that they tend to be more expensive than solid state units. After a long and fascinating thread on the subject, followed by a series of instore try-outs (not really an option right now of course) I shelled out a little over £550 on a Fender Blues Junior IV. One other point; don't be tempted by power ratings: the 15w rating on the BJ IV is actually a bit more than I needed for home use (and more than enough for the recording projects I have in the pipeline). 10w will be plenty, and there are some very good valve amps out there with 5w - and lower - ratings too. If that nth degree of sound quality (not to mention hearing the sound coming out of an actual amp cabinet) is not such a big deal then plenty of good options have already been mentioned above. As always, just my opinion.

Hello there, Found what you all wrote informative. I have a marshal 50 amp, can't get the thing to give me the sound I want and have been lookin myself for something to use, just indoors for my own pleasure, but would love to be able to play a more meatier sound, just can't get it right on the marshal. Ive had a look at the spark thats newly advertised, but am useless with computer tech stuff, so want something I can mess with buttons or nobs and just make it sound great. I love playing a meaty sound like sabbath, iron maiden, accept type sound and will have a look at what you have mentioned on here. I have tried looking on u tube to get advice on how to use my small amp, but still cant get it to sound right... ...Thanks.... Kaz

Personally - and this really only is a subjective personally opinion - it's a rare Gibson I would find worth the spend. (Bear in mind, of course that the left handed options I see are more commonly the closing in on two grand end of things new; I'd struggle to justify that when I could go to a reputable builder and have something custom made to my specs for that....). These tributes look nice, though, and around the price that I'd feel comfortable with if I wanted a Les Paul again. Buying new given these price points, I'd stump up for the Gibson,. I'm sure the Epi is a fine guitar (I've never played an Epi I thought was truly "bad", beyond muddy HBs), but for my tastes Gibson have rather started to push the prices of Epiphones up. After yeas of them selling Epi as a budget brand, I'm afraid I find it hard to look at their new guitars and thing "expensive Epiphone-alike" rather than "Bargain Gibson!" If I was already going to buy a copy of a Gibson, I'd probably look at Vintage or Tokai instead, rather than spend more on something which, no matter how 'official' it is, is no less a 'copy' just a more expensive one. I still believe that's a major reason why Epiphone's Elite/ Elitist series failed - if they'd badged it 'Gibson Japan', I honestly think they'd have made a mint. Course, it's still very early days for these new Epiphones, so it's possible they will begin to hold their own moneywise. Proportionately, I think Epis always did (at least for the LP models) hold a similar proportion of their resale value to higher end (non-rare) production line Gibsons, but to me they're no longer worth the new prices given the range of competition out there. At least their marketing department have finally cottoned on to the impact of headstock shape in the market, though - always seemed a strange choice to me in a world where the market does care about these things that Gibson would give its own budget line a headstock shape that immediately made it less close a replica of the real thing than many other legit copies on the market (I'm not talking counterfeits). TL/DR: if I was going to buy a LP nowadays, the Tribute would be the one I'd choose, especially if available used.