Plus points:
That neck. Just so damn playable and easy. Satin finish, asymmetrical C-shape that makes it a dream to play. I love it.
Lovely black finish on the body that has a nice understated look.
The pickup config and tone options are versatile and useful. Does everything from rounded, smooth tones, to funky attack. The split coil really good, and very useful when you need that snap to cut through the mix. Takes very well to overdrive! Not too muddy, though the factory strings are bit unbalanced tonally. I find the low B is just a little too rounded compared to the others (or the E could do with another .05, depending on taste).
Negatives:
QC on Ibanez's cheaper guitars has always been pretty bad over the years, but even Harley benton are doing a better job these days. Well done Thomann.
The neck alignment/bridge drilling is off by a mm or two, so the strings are not parallel with the neck edges, getting progressively worse as you move up the neck, and the dot markers also then appear off-centered. The latter I can live with as its a minor cosmetic issue, but the former is affecting playability.
The fret finishing is non-existent. Sure the ends are clipped reasonably ok, but there is no consistency to the fret hammering and as such the action must remain high to avoid choking. Lots of lifted and uneven frets means this will need a full level, recrown and polish before it is playable at reasonable actions. I'm not fussy here as it's bass after all, but this has really not been consistently made.
There has been no effort made to clean the crap off the frets or the fretboard, and there is a strange lump at the end of the board that looks like its been melted on somehow.
The bridge is cheap and uncomfortable, and keeps losing its height settings as the grub screws rotate too easily under the palm.
The knobs are scratchy feeling and produce crackles.
The nut is cut very badly and still has burring hanging off it.
I have two options now. Keep the guitar and do the work myself to fix it, or return to Thomann for an exchange and hope the next one is better.
I have read numerous reviews that mirror my experiences and so I'm not so sure I can be bothered to play the lottery again.
If I decide to keep the bass it will need:
New nut (grapite)
New bridge
Fret level, crown, polish
Try cleaning the pots, or if not then new ones.
Is it worth all this for a budget bass? Well it does play like a dream, and it sounds great too. Maybe even a redrill of the bridge mounting would help enough to bring the string alignment back. I'm on the fence still but am confident in Thomann's excellent return policies and customer service so I will update this review if anything changes.
