No it's not the same, it's quite different. It has a maple top & separate High & Low Impedance jacks like the 1976 version. Like the Les Paul Signature, it has a balanced line out. A chord came with the guitar. I have a Peavey KB-300 with a low impedance mic jack that I use when playing low impedance & it sounds really nice, even though it's going from hi to low impedance. I miss the "Decade" feature, it was standard on all previous Recordings & one bass in the Netherlands! It has a separate tone control for each pickup, not the Treble & Bass control the originals had. I like the feature that allows you to switch either pickup to single coil, though I don't know yet if I'd use it much. I'll have to try it through a few more amps. I tried using a low impedance amp & a high impedance amp at the same time, it hummed & the ground lift switch worked to quiet it down. Kind of a neat effect in itself. I guess after thinking about it for around a year, I bought it because it was different.