No. 8 Wire

PB 50 number 2 turned up today. Night and Day improvement over the one I sent back - maybe they checked this one prior to dispatch? For a start, all the screws are present which helps! The neck is a lovely piece of maple with very slight flaming and birdseye which just gives it a little character its also a pleasing shade too. The fingerboard is plain vanilla however and like a lot of these looks entirely different from the neck wood. I can get the action down to a very playable height before string buzz sets in, might go lower with flatwounds, although I'm almost hitting the saddles on the bridge plate, so a different bridge may be needed or a neck shim to go much lower. The nut seems a tad high so that might get filed or replaced - possibly with a brass nut. Body, pots etc all good - sounds pretty clean but possibly a slight shielding or grounding issue going on, easy to fix. Tuners are nice too. So I'm going to play this for a while and then do a small amount of customising, possibly including: Reprofile the headstock to tele strip neck poly and refinish in gunstock oil and wax. Light fret dress replace/file nut - maybe get a brass nut. New bridge and/or ashtray Fit SD SCPB2 (obviously A/B with the wilkinson) So, I'm quite glad Thomann sent a replacement rather than refunded.

Just bought a DHA Vt1 from Jim. Absolute pleasure to deal with, bang on with his description and communication. Extremely fast postage as well. Very happy, cheers! Dan

Yeah, it is pretty extreme, also it doesn't take into account the height of your action. So on different basses the height from e string to pickup could be quite different. In practice, my pickup doesn't get as low as the pickguard on the bass side. So it not as extreme as the picture above. I guess the only solution as always is to try it and see what works best for you. On mine it helps with string evenness, but it wasn't shocking in the old setup either.

Just sold a glass of darkness to Dan, pleasure to do business with. Trade with absolute confidence! Cheers, Dan

Sold a p bass body to Francis. Easy sale and a great guy to deal with.

[quote name='jazzyvee' timestamp='1458740989' post='3010378'] So, if a group of people are sitting in an apartment and a conversation starts between some of them that includes language that is disrespectful towards another racial group not present. Are you saying no-one has a right to intervene because the racial group they are talking about is not present in the room so can't be offended? [/quote] Anyone has right to intervene, that's the principle of freedom of expression, you don't necessarily have the right to curtail someone else's freedom of expression though. As in this case, where you have intervened, but have no right to actually change the title. It's not about race though is it? I don't know about you but I don't associate my racial group with the products my country makes. Should I be offended if someone says all British cars are unreliable? It's patently absurd. That's even disregarding the positive connotations of 'japcrap' that have been so eloquently explained. PS. Have you spotted any decent vintage Mij gear for us?

Despite sending my PB 50 back for a refund, Thomann have just sent me a dispatch note indicating they are sending another one out. I even put a note on the bass asking for a refund. Well never mind, maybe this is fate (or Thomann's accountant), and this PB 50 will be a picture of bargain basement perfection.

Alex, Musicman's setup instructions have changed slightly. They now recommend you drop the bass side of the pickup right down to the pickguard. Scroll down a bit on this link: http://www.music-man.com/faq I've set up mine following that and is does help with evenness across the strings. On the front to back, can't really help as my strings are pretty much parallel to the bass body. I have a low action and my frets have been dressed down over the years (by an over enthusiastic tech) , so not as tall as new.