Epiphone Dobro Hound Dog Round Neck Resonator - Vintage Brown Reviews

First off Joey and the staff were great! I live this Dobro plays great tone is awesome for the price! Just Awesome. Thanks !!!!

Intonation was accurate and the inverted cone and spider resonator was in perfect working order, no excessive rattles or hums. The plain maple body has a very nice wood grain body patterns. Believe me I would of loved to buy the American model, but times are tough. It sounds great with all types of slides. It would of been nice to have a case or at least a gig bag to come with it, oh well. Frets come out just a little too much from the fret board, just a little, I fixed it with some extra fine steel wool.The sound that comes from this guitar is loud and it is ready to play out of the box. Tuning keys are Grover, which is very nice for this low budget guitar. I don't have buyers remorse. This guitar sounds great for any style.

With the proper strings and setup this Hound Dog sings.
Rewarding in terms of bang for your buck.
Most rewarding to play.

You have to start somewhere. I wanted to get into alternate tuning & slide so I went this route. After playing around for a couple days this won't be my only resonator in my collection. I really like this guitar. For those buying their first resonator there are 4 wound strings & the 12th fret is tight to the body but that is the way they are made. When I get jamming with it I forget how loud it is. I'm up here in Michigan in the snow but when I play this I feel I'm in a Louisiana swamp. So glad I purchased it & thanks to Sweetwater for their setup & speedy shipping

All around solid construction. Very nice finish. I wish it had more cone sound but in all fairness I think you only get that with the metal body version.

I have been playing with a steel/slide for quite a while. I bought a real Dobro D-33 steel body round neck (before Gibson) back in 1985 so I was looking for something a little on the lighter side yet have real guts. This is simply a great guitar and for $500 you can't beat it.

Very nice matte finish with binding. Sounds great both unplugged and amped. I also picked up a Fishman pre-amp with equalizer which made a big difference in tweaking tone and adjusting volume. I mostly play blues today and when I took this out of the case at my local jam house I had a crowd in no time.

The only thing I did was put a set of slighter smaller gauge strings on. Sweetwater did a great job of setup before shipping. If you are considering a resonator guitar then you will have to spend a lot more money to beat this rig. A lot more. Highly recommended. 'Nuff Said.

I waited for my Hound Dog for over a year and was very excited when it shipped. I am a major instrument novice picking up bits and pieces of info from bandmates over the years. This guitar has a comfortable feel as I make my attempt towards becoming Blues Guitar Virtuoso. I love the weight and shape and the shine. I have made a few very cool sounds while trying to become familar with the instrument .It actually spurred me on to read a guitar chord book from cover to end. That alone amazes me as it has never interested me in the past. I am very motivated to learn to play. I guess I can be a singer and a player. I am very pleased with my Houd Dog!

TL;DR - authentic sound, awful play-ability as stock. A whole new instrument after a few crucial mods.

2 1/2 stars might be more appropriate since I would never recommend this ax to anyone unless they're will to do a few necessary mods or have them done. I play in open G.

The first thing I noticed, after appreciating the true Dobro-osity of the sound, is the weird 2-piece bridge that is properly high for slide on the bass end but slopes down on the treble side to the point where I simply couldn't play any slide on the E string without crapping out on the frets. (Note: slide of choice is an 11/16" deep socket, been using it for 50 years - thanks, Lowell.) Hmmm...sure looks extremely familiar. Why that's the EXACT same bridge assembly that the Washburn res I bought and returned had. In this case, since the price was so good and hey, it's got the Dobro decal!, I decided to go ahead and try a fix while in the process of installing a K&K res pickup in the biscuit (which seems to be an ultra-cheep mostly plastic affair...who cares, sounds ok.) A little bit a very thin wood shim under the treble side and bingo, proper action across all strings.

However it was still hard to play up by the nut, VERY hard when compared to my converted old Alvarez open G. Primary cause: really badly cut nut, slightly inset from both treble and bass sides. Maybe a matter of a silly millimeter or two but really cramped, and my hands are relatively small. Solution was to measure and then order a 11/16 Tusq nut from GraphTech. Super easy replacement (scope it out on YT first pls) and big improvement BUT the Tusq was nowhere near as tall as the original plastic one. Initially I put another shim piece under it to get the same action but tried it out with only string tension holding in place since I was curious as to what it'd be like with lower action at the nut. Pulled the shim, tuned up again and WOW - what was almost a flip is now a sho nuff keeper! Action up at the top is approx standard acoustic but still high enough for slide with no issues... but now I can finally do the few basic fretting chords I like, especially when in G or D.

I was very hesitant to purchase on line with out actually playing this instrument first hand. I read lots of reviews, which were mixed. I just wanted an inexpensive but functioning guitar to bring to work, or ride off to the park, or just sit out on the porch to play, I did not want to be concerned about nicks and tings, if something happened to it. Out of the box, this instrument looked good, but my initial response when I played it was one of real disappointment. I set the guitar aside for a few days and then went back to it. I looked it over with less emotional interference, and to my surprise this guitar began to speak to me. I l tried to figure out what was wrong and come up with a few things. One, the string height was much to high, which made playing a real challenge in standard tuning. In open tuning playing bottle neck this instrument has a great sound. Yes, I said great sound, but I wanted to be able to jump back and forth between opening tuning and standard turning..I have recently just had the nut height corrected, from .004 back to .002, what a difference. When I first got the instrument I thought I had just tossed my money out the window, I have done a 360 in how I feel about this instrument. For the money, it is a decent guitar, in fact I have brought to to work for the first time today to sit outside at lunch time so I can do what I love doing..making music. Playing this guitar is a bit different, you have approach it with a different mindset, once you figure this out, this instrument can really sing. I am so glad I did not stuff it in the closet. Playing this guitar has opened up a world of music that I had no idea was there...

Larry From Maine

I was disappointed in this guitar. Don't get me wrong, I like resonators, and I own several, but this guitar arrived with its action so high it's virtually unplayable. I get that it should be set up for slide and bottle use as well as picking, but the set up on this Dobro isn't good for any of the three. I have a Gretsch resonator that is so much better, and was, right out of the box. So this one is going to a luthier for further work. It seems well built, and it arrived packed well and was un damaged when it arrived, so that's a plus. But I really can't say that I recommend it, since it's going to need a lot of work before it can be played. I buy a lot of guitars from Sweetwater, and unfortunately, this is the first guitar that I have gotten from them that I'm not real crazy about.