Eminence - KAPPA PRO 10 LF A

A little history...
It all began in 1975, when a young Hisatake Shibuya opened a small shop in Tokyo selling spare parts for audio and music products under the name Electric Sound Products (ESP).
A few years later, following the electric guitar boom, he began selling spare parts and accessories for guitars.
This led, two years later, to offering fully-assembled Fender or Gibson copies.
These were not mass-produced guitars, but bespoke models made to order.
It didn't take long for ESP to carve out a reputation for itself, multiplying its brand names and supplying the biggest brands, including Kramer and Schecter.
It began to manufacture its own original models, initially marketed in Japan under the names ESP or Navigator, then, with the help of success, in the USA with the support of famous musicians (Vernon Reid, Kiss, Ronnie Wood...).
Until George Lynch discovered the brand while on tour in Japan, an encounter that led to a long and fruitful collaboration.
All that remained was for the young entrepreneur to move to the USA and open a factory in Japan.
The year was 1987. That same year, Hisatake Shibuya bought the Schecter brand from Texan investors, but kept the two companies completely independent.
An accomplished businessman, he also bought the prestigious Musicians Institute music school (formerly the Guitar Institute of Technology) in Los Angeles.
In the early 90s, ESP opened a boutique in California, then in 1996, as demand for low-cost models grew, the LTD subsidiary was created to supply strict copies of the original models, this time made in Korea and Indonesia.
Strongly challenged by Jackson, ESP nevertheless reaped the rewards of Fender's takeover of the brand in the early 2000s, with countless guitar heroes terminating their sponsorship contracts to join ESP (Dave Mustaine, and Alexis Laiho, in particular).
ESP has been making its mark on the world of rock guitar and big sound for over thirty years.
And we're not going to complain, especially as the brand continues to take centre stage with models that are rarely renewed (but do you change a winning team?) but always just as sexy. A success that applies equally to its flagship models (the Signature) and to their variants marketed under the LTD name.