Epiphone PR-4E Pack Review – A Near-Perfect Acoustic Guitar Package

The Epiphone PR-4E is an acoustic-electric, beginner-friendly guitar that packs in pretty much all features a newbie would need and appreciate in their first guitar. For the sub-$250 price tag, you’ll get an Epiphone Acoustic-15 watt amp, a guitar strap, a gig bag, one cable, a clip-on tuner, an instructional DVD, and the Epiphone PR-4E guitar itself.

Build Quality of the Epiphone PR-4E

Despite being fairly inexpensive, the guitar is predominantly high-quality mahogany wood. The back, sides, and neck of the guitar is mahogany. The top is made of spruce. The fingerboard is classic rosewood with white dot inlays and 20 frets. The neck is pretty solid and does its job well.

The vintage X-bracing ensures increased stability and volume, while the cutaway provides access to frets. The guitar is sturdy, yet lightweight and is also easy to grip, thanks to the choice of materials. Also, the materials give the guitar a more premium look and feel. And though not a dreadnought, it’s a full-size guitar.

The only negative I found with this guitar were the tuners. They went out of tune more often than they should have, which leads me to say that this is where Epiphone decided to save some money.

You can put new tuners on it later on though, which makes for a nice beginner luthier project as well.

Sound and tone of the Epiphone PR-4E

The high-grade materials used create the very foundation of this guitar’s great sound signature. The mahogany body offers a well-rounded sound. It’s strong and large on one hand, and bright and a bit mellow on the other.

In both unplugged and plugged-in regime, the sound produced has a strong punch in the mid-range. The treble section is bright. The basses exist too, but they get overshadowed by the other sound frequencies. Upon hooking up the guitar with the bundled-in amp, you would realize the true sound potential of this guitar.

Unsurprisingly. the audio quality is nowhere close to what the lot more expensive guitars would offer. But for the price, it’s significantly more than enough. There is zero muddiness or boominess, which is usually synonymous with inexpensive guitars.

Despite its fairly compact size, the guitar has no issues producing voluminous sounds. The sound is sweet and warm, and the overall tone has a balance to it. There could be slight buzzing at times, but it’s not something you cannot rectify by making some truss rod adjustments.

Most importantly, mahogany and spruce will not get overloaded regardless of what your strumming style is. Therefore, if you’re considering using this guitar for your amateur performance, you need not constantly be thinking about balancing your movements. And since there’s wood at play, the sound would get better with time.

Video review of the Epiphone PR-4E

Epiphone PR-4E Acoustic Guitar Package review

This guitar comes as part of a guitar kit, which includes things a beginner might need to get started.

The Epiphone PR-4E player pack includes:

• Epiphone 15C acoustic guitar amplifier, with 3-band EQ and Chorus
• Tuner
• Strap
• Cable
• Picks
• Guitar course link
• Gig bag – the bag is not padded, so it will not protect the guitar well. Also, it does not have a strap, just the carrying handle. If you need a gig bag, check these out instead.

The highlight of this guitar pack is the amplifier. It produces a clear sound that complements the PR-4E very nicely.

Now do beginners need an amp to learn on an acoustic guitar? No, they don’t.

About Epiphone Guitars

Epiphone was founded in 1973, and purchased by Gibson in 1957. They are viewed as the little brother of Gibson, and can produce all of the patented guitar shapes that Gibson has.

Most Epiphone guitars are built in the Qingdao, China factory. Don’t let this derail you though, the guitars that come out of this plant are good quality instruments, not cheap knock-offs.

Our Opinion on the Epiphone PR-4E

Let’s clear this right off the bat, the Epiphone PR-4E is not something professional guitarists would buy.

For everybody else, the guitar is a steal. For the price, the guitar is decent value. If you know anything about guitars and have played them before, you should be aware that it’s not just the guitar that matters. The amp, cable, picks, tuner, etc. add too to the entire experience.

If you were to buy a beginner-friendly guitar and the various accessories separately, your total costs would be around $500. Epiphone offers you them all for around $250.

That is the value proposition we are talking about here.

Long story short, if you’re looking for a first-time guitar that can hold up and also not sound like a typical beginner guitar, the Epiphone PR-4E is truly worth consideration.