ESP E-II Horizon FR, Black

Product discontinued

ESP E-II Horizon FR, Black

Product discontinued

ESP E-II Horizon FR, Black Overview

The ESP E-II series it crafted in Japan and is what you need if you're looking for an amazing high-end guitar at a more reasonable price. These guitars replace the ESP Standard range and have all the tone and incredible playability of their predecessors!

The Horizon FR is a full Neck-Thru guitar with mahogany body, and Maple top and neck. Fully Black hardware, Thin-U neck contour and Ebony fingerboard add to the great playing feel and Duncan pickups and 24 XJ frets finish off the raw tone. Original Floyd Rose trem and Gotoh Tuners so you know it'll stay in tune no matter what you throw at it.

Includes ESP hard case.

5 out of 5
1 review
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Rated 5.00 out of 5 01/1/2020

I've bought guitars a few times on the web and none of them have really worked out - either returned or sold shortly afterwards... the only ones I've kept are the ones I've tried out in the flesh. So, while seeing a higher end ESP for £1299 in the sale was something not to be missed (and in a style and configuration that I've been thinking about for a while), I was still a bit worried that this wouldn't work out. But being an owner of an ESP Silverburst Eclipse (when they still used ESP on the headstock for the standard Japanese range before switching it to 'E-II'), I already knew I was going to get something special. And boy is this special - it comes in a hard case which is perfectly sized (the Eclipse case is massive and a real pain to drag around to places) and strung with what I assume is a set of 9s. It's definitely had a decent set up (either at the factory or by the shop) - the Floyd Rose is level with the body and I didn't need to tweak it all. It's set up for E Standard - which is expected - and while I will get round to setting it up for Eb/10 gauge strings, I'm rather enjoying playing it as it is with a combination of a lower action than I usually have and thinner strings that are making it so much easier to smash out some speedy chops! The neck is comparable in feel to the thickness of the Eclipse; described as a 'Thin-U' I thought it might end up being something pretty skinny, but thankfully it is not. Unlike the Eclipse, there's easy access to the upper frets and the overall weight is less but not worryingly so... I like to feel that my guitar has a decent bit of wood to it! My initial expectation was that I might want to look at changing out the pickups - I probably wouldn't have chosen the combination based on the descriptions (which is sometimes all you have to go on), but they've been really rather nice and so I think I'll be sticking with these for a good while. The final piece of satisfaction comes from the Original Floyd Rose system. I've owned a couple of guitars in the past that have had lower grade FRs and to be honest, the faff and hassle that can come with these was something I was worried about. So far it's been amazing - of course it goes out of tune eventually, but I've been playing this guitar a lot in the last 3 days and having a lot of fun with divebombs, squeals and flutters. It holds the tuning really well and I could see it would be possible to give it some abuse for quite a few songs in a set before really needing to make some quick adjustments with the fine tuners while the singer is chatting up the crowd. All in all, an excellent guitar from an excellent brand... I want another ESP now!

Leofric Govan