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Originally Posted by floydmoline
does to me, if it's not solid wood, it's not worthy of more than a 200 dollar price tag..... this is obviously my own opinion of course, further i can't understand why epiphone an gibson feel the need to make les pauls with laminate tops, only thing i can figure is to make the "'highly figured" maple slabs last longer 3/4 figured maple top is a waste of atleast 1/2" but when you skinny the laminates down to 1/16" you are pushing it.... that is called venier and when all the layers of said top are less than 1/16" it's is in my opinion plywood, maple plywood, pine plywood makes no difference at this stage because it's still mostly glue....... biggest reason this concerns me is because agile can make a quality les paul with a solid maple cap for 200 bucks!!!!!
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I'm guessing you're comparing the Epi LP Standard to the Rondo AL-2000 (which is at the $200 price point).
At the outset, it's obvious that Rondo can offer a bit more bang-for-buck, because Epi has an advertising budget while Rondo essentially doesn't. However, once you get past the "paying-for-the-name" thing, things get very subjective and very dicey very fast.
For example, I doubt I could hear a difference between what a solid 1/16" grade B maple cap does to an Agile AL-2000 vs. what a laminate maple cap does to an Epi. Maybe you can, but I doubt my ears are that good.
But, in addition to getting the Les Paul/Epi name, there are other factors that may make an Epi more attractive to some buyers (especially now that it appears that Epi is using only mahogany for bodies and not substituting alder sometimes, as used to be the case). For instance, Epi's LP Standard comes with alnico pickups and a mahogany neck, closer to original LP specs. The Rondo AL-2000 comes with a maple neck and ceramic humbuckers.
For me,
all these differences are relatively minimal, though the pickup difference (which Epi wins) probably has the most effect on sound. You're free to assign whatever value to them as you chooose, but the "$200 Agile" has some other features that would be more detrimental to some people than the laminate cap on the Epi is.
Just sayin'.