The bass that has surprised me the most is the Sandberg Basic I bought from this very forum. It's like a Stingray but with a smaller lighter body, faster neck, active/passive switching and a warmer sound due to the pickup being a little bit further from the bridge. I bunged some TI flats on it too last week. Plugged straight in without any pedals, in active or passive mode, it's the best sounding bass I've owned and now I want a fretless to go with it!
They don't pop up used very often but there is the cheaper yet very similarly specced Sandberg Electra M4 out there, I've seen the odd one on eBay come up cheap.