The ESP Guitar Company

Yes, LTD is to ESP what Epiphone is to Gibson except a lot better.

When it comes to the quality of the LTD guitars, in my opinion, they are just awesome. I have a few LTD'S and I have nothing to complain about. I have not have had the pleasure of playing a ESP snakebyte nor any ESP so I can't really say what the difference is. But if you get an LTD, I dont think you will be disappointed. 

I have owned many epiphones, gibsons, ltds, and Esp.

Older Epiphones were made in korea, the quality of those was pretty good.  most of the newer ones are made in  china, and the quality control is bad, especially on the lower price models.   Not saying you can't find a good one, but you have try a bunch to find a decent one.

After that it might age poorly,  because of poor material selections.

By comparison even the base model ltds, many of which are also in china are very well made.

The difference is the level of production oversight.

LTD does a fantastic job of this. Epiphone does not.

overall Esp consistancy of quality is better than Gibsons.

Gibson Usa. 

play 25 les paul standards and find one that is exceptional, 10 that are good, 10 that are ok, 4 that are horrible.

Esp 

play 25 eii eclipses and find

20 that are very good, 3 that are good, 2 that are below average.

epiphones current production

play 25,  find 5 very good ones,

5 good ones, 10 that are just ok, 5 that are horrible.

ltd 

play 25  you will find

20 that are very good, 3 that are good, 2 that are below average

I am confident of buying any esp product without playing it first.

I am reluctant to buy any gibson product without playing it first.

I still own plenty of gibson products, the ones i own are great, i hand picked most of them, or had a store manager hand pick it if i could not make it to the store in person.

I buy esp guitars blind all the time. 

i got a ltd bass with a bad truss rod.  took it to my local dealer and esp sent them a new neck, now its one of my favorite basses.

I got a vintage esp with a bad neck. It was ordered from a chain store. so i returned it.

probably order 25 to 30 esp ltd guitars and basses, sight unseen and out of all those. These were the only two that had issues.One of which was pre owned.