Steinberger Spirit - The New Batch

[anzoid]

There's been a new batch of Steinberger Spirit basses come out recently after them being unavailable for quite a while.

Well, I bought a brand new white one from Musik Productiv in Germany. It arrived yesterday and has gone back today - junk. The previous batch from a handful of years ago was pretty decent (I had a 4 and a 5-string for a while), this new batch... not so good.

Maybe I just got a bad one but somehow I doubt it - the edges were all rough - the wood itself looked like it hadn't been sanded properly, just painted over. The finish was pretty thin in a few places and on the heel of the neck there was a patch that looked like someone had been over-enthusiastic with a sander, said "Oh, sod it, god enough" and then painted over it. There was also a buzz from up near the head piece when playing open strings that could have been from the truss rod, and looking down into the neck through the end of the head piece the truss rod wasn't even aligned with the hole for the allen key - not sure you could have adjusted the truss rod properly without taking off the head piece. So I didn't even bother fiddling with it.

Overall setup was OK, playable with a bit of clanking when playing hard. Fretwork was OK - no sharp edges but nothing special, probably could have done with adjusting. Edge of the neck was bit... undulating and not very tidy, sound was anaemic from the Steinberger branded pickups - too mid-focused, not enough bass. So, kinda damned by (very) faint praise really.

Was it broken? No, reasonably serviceable bass, but up close looked like crap and certainly not worthy of the Steinberger name. (This bass would've made Ned cry...)
Was it what I expected? Well, given my last two Spirits I was expecting a little better - it's definitely low end, but the fit and finish was not as good as previous examples, and certainly not up to Yamaha or Ibanez standards for the same price point.

So, all in all - not worth the bother!

Musik Productiv though are brilliant - very helpful in getting the order done and answering a couple of delivery question, also very helpful on the returns process (though if you reject under the 30-day guarantee you pay shipping, ouch, and it wasn't faulty as such... just rubbish)

[alyctes]

Nice review, thanks. What a shame